Open, Shut
by Mirrordance
Summary: A street prophet foresees a deadly disaster and goes to the only people who would believe him: the Winchesters and Bobby Singer. It's an open and shut case except the only solution is -how do you empty a town of four thousand people? Post-Family Remains.
1. Prologue

**Author: Mirrordance**

**Title: Open, Shut**

**Summary:** A street prophet foresees a deadly disaster and goes to the only people who would believe him:the Winchesters and Bobby Singer. It 's an open and shut case except the only solution is-how do you empty a town of four thousand people? Post-_Family Remains_.

**Hi guys!**

First off, thanks to all who read, alerted, favorite-d, and especially all who reviewed my last fic, _Crossing_. Here's a new offering for me, on the drama/action/adventure side this time, called _Open Shut_. For those who have read my work before, I previewed _Open, Shut _in _Steps Behind_, but after working on it so long it is finally done and posted here :) There's a prologue and 7 parts, and each part should be posted weekly (unless I get excited and post days and sometimes even hours apart, which I have been known to do haha). I hope you enjoy, and let me know what you think. Thank you for your time, and thanks and luv to Mish, who did the beta for me. All flaws left are entirely mine :)

Anyway, c&c's are always welcome, and without further ado, _Open Shut:_

" " "

**Open, Shut**

" " "

**Prologue**

" " "

The very, very first time Paul Reade came under the radar of local law enforcement was when he was arrested a couple of years back for a misdemeanor relating to disrupting the peace, drunken disorderly, indecent exposure and solicitation. He had won the lottery a few days prior, life was fucking grand, and why shouldn't he have a good time? When the cops picked him up, all he was wearing was a loopy smile and a vomit-wrecked pair of Italian shoes.

"That was all he was wearing?" The rookie, a kid named Jennings, asked his partner, Garcia, a fifteen-year veteran officer in the sleepy town, as the two cops dragged a stinking, inebriated, semi-conscious Paul Reade between them.

"You betcha," Garcia grunted, "The only person who could have trumped that pair of shoes was his Big City lawyer, who got him out on a shit-fine and coupla hours of community service."

"I read that's where he met his wife," Jennings said, as the two men settled the drunk on a cot in one of the town's few, seldom-used prison cells.

"Second wife," Garcia corrected, wiping his hands on his trousers after locking up the rusted, dusty cell. There weren't very many criminals in the town, and the prison was ill-kept.

"He met wife number two while pretending to pick up trash at the park," he added, "Wife number one had gone and divorced him and got fifty percent of the winnings, see. Wife number two he lost a few months after marrying her, when she tried to kill him unsuccessfully to get to his money. That sprightly broad went to jail. And then the son-of-a-bitch went up and won the fucking lottery again, like it was so easy."

"You sure?" Jennings asked, skeptically, as he looked from the bleary drunk to Garcia, "I mean, a guy doesn't win the lottery twice and end up on the damn streets talking about the end of the world. He's lost his marbles, man. And where'd all the damn money go?"

Garcia just shrugged, "Makes you start to wonder, though, about that Curse thing."

Jennings snorted, "That lottery curse? You really are an old man, Garcia. Maybe he just spent it all." He turned to the man in question, "Didn't 'ya, Reade? You spent all your money?"

"Yeah, 'cos your mother wouldn't put out 'til I paid her," Reade slurred.

"You take that back, you sonofa--"

"Relax, kid," Garcia said, placing a hand on the younger man's shoulder, "You can't see a man down-on-his-luck at the end of his string, here? Pick your fights, he ain't worth it."

"Damn straight," Jennings said, glaring at Reade.

"Hey," Reade said, "Don't I get a phone call or something?"

"Too bad you got nobody to call," Jennings snapped, still irritated.

"You really need it, Paul?" Garcia asked Reade, "'Cos you settle down some and we're letting you out anyways. 'Sides, you sure you wanna do this now? You're still kinda out-of-it."

"I think I need to be just a little bit out-of-it to make this call," Reade said with a low chuckle at an incomprehensible, personal joke.

Garcia sighed, and unlocked the cell again. "Fine. Jennings, help him out."

Jennings rolled back his eyes but did as he was told. He assisted the swaying man to a phone booth, leaning him against the wall, where he sagged as he dialed.

"Bobby Singer?" Reade said to the person on the other line, "This here's Paul Reade, remember me, the lottery guy? A bunch of yer dumb-ass hunting buddies tried to take my head off a few years ago 'til you talked some sense into 'em... yeah, hard to forget, I know, that's me... didja get my thank-you gift? ... I told you there's lotsa things a man can do with quarter-of-a-million dollars..."

Jennings tapped on his watch, telling Reade wordlessly to hurry it along.

"Listen, I think I got a job right up yer alley," Reade said, "I think the world's gonna end, but no one believes me."

Jennings rolled back his eyes thinking, _Damned waste of time_. The person on the other line must have been just as skeptical, because Reade was making quick defenses.

"I'm not saying it 'cos I'm drunk," Reade snapped, "I'm drunk 'cos I'm sayin' it, see, 'cos it's really gonna happen. Please. No one believes me. I thought maybe you... you could look into it, at least. Please, Singer. Look into it at least."

**S U P E R N A T U R A L**


	2. Count Us Out

**Author: Mirrordance**

**Title: Open, Shut**

**Summary:** A street prophet foresees a deadly disaster and goes to the only people who would believe him:the Winchesters and Bobby Singer. It's an open and shut case except the only solution is-how do you empty a town of four thousand people? Post-_Family Remains_.

" " "

**Open, Shut**

" " "

**1: Count Us Out**

" " "

It was a full-time job, this pissing off demons and angels thing, not to mention staving off the Apocalypse and putting down all the miscellaneous bit-players in between. The triple-task was exhausting, making the Winchester brothers much more selective in their case choices. Gone were the old days when they could go across the country on the loose possibility of a job.

The Paul Reade case could have fallen by the wayside if it wasn't Bobby Singer who personally called and asked for help.

"An honest-to-god seer-slash-street prophet?" Sam said over the phone, "I don't know, Bobby."

They caught the call at a local diner, weary after a long drive following a messy job successfully accomplished. Dean has been pensive about it for hours. He ignored Bobby's call, forcing the older hunter to grumpily call Sam instead.

Dean spared Sam a mildly curious glance, but otherwise occupied himself with doodling on the table napkin, as the brothers waited for their food orders. Sam had noticed that it was one of Dean's freshly acquired post-hell habits, aside from the working-til-he-was-dead-on-his-feet-thing, the drinking-thing, the sleep-without-changing-thing, the wake-after-an-hour-from-a-nightmare-thing... Dean had a lot of new Things.

Sam understood the reason behind the new 'Dean-Things.' Dean wanted to keep working; it took his mind off of hell, at least until he was so exhausted his body just gave out, falling into restless sleep. This strange routine also offered him some sort of penance, or possibly an avenue for self-punishment. The doodling however was a different animal altogether.

The first of the table napkin doodles that Sam spotted had the number 3,650 scrawled on it. After a job, the number would decrease... 3,640... 3,637... they seemed random at first, Sam beginning to wonder if his brother had really lost his mind. But he said nothing, giving Dean the elbow-room he needed to sort himself out, especially since Dean had explicitly addressed the need for that space.

_I won't lie anymore but I'm not gonna talk about it._

_There are no words..._

_... no forgetting._

_... no making it better._

_... they're just right here._

_Forever._

Either way, Sam had come to expect this behavior from Dean lately, the ability to start opening up and speaking about the things that bothered him on his own time, made necessary by circumstances so dire that he was apparently filled to capacity until eventually, his defenses would break down and his emotions just gushed out.

_How I feel... inside me?_

_I wish I couldn't feel anything, Sammy._

Besides, Sam decided not to push it. Sam was self-aware enough to know that his current silence was also some form of self-preservation; even though he hated admitting it, hearing Dean in his hopelessness was often crippling for him, and they had a whole lot of work to do to both be crippled at the same time.

A while back, a job had turned bad and they'd lost a mother and a child. When the table napkin doodle went up from 3,637 to 3,639, Sam finally guessed what the numbers meant. People they've saved decreased the number, and people they lost increased it. Why it began at 3,650 in the first place was something Sam had to figure out. The bottom line though, was that every person they saved decreased that confounded number, and Dean seemed in a damn rush to get that down to zero.

It was why they were doing too many jobs. It didn't take Sam long to get on Dean's obsessive little bandwagon, because whatever the hell the numbers meant to his brother, they seemed to mean _a lot_. Sam started finding easy jobs that they could finish quickly and do more of. He prioritized jobs based on geographic location, to do as many jobs in an area and not loose any time on the road. He had also stopped complaining about sleeping in the car most of the time, instead of kicking back in a motel.

If Dean noticed the change, he said nothing. But Sam felt he had to draw the line somewhere; Dean wasn't functioning at a hundred percent right now, and another job after this most recent mess had him hesitating.

"At least I think he used to be, back when I first ran into him," Bobby was saying, "Paul Reade won the lottery using numbers he saw in a dream. He won it again a couple of months later, same thing. It made the news, of course, especially since he was making a nuisance of himself about this psychic mumbo-jumbo. A bunch of hunters came after him. I talked some sense into the knuckleheads; Reade's harmless. They left him alone in exchange for a donation of ten thousand dollars, which they used for ammo and medical insurance."

Dean listened to Sam's side of the conversation with half-an-ear as their food arrived. His younger brother slapped at his forearm, motioning for him to start eating, seeing as he wasn't paying attention anyway. Dean looked at him irritably, refocusing on his frenzied doodling on the table napkin.

"You said 'used to be'," Sam pointed out, snatching one of Dean's fries in younger-brother defiance. Dean was distracted enough to let him get away with it.

"He can't control the visions," Bobby said, "He gets them in his sleep, so I can never tell if he's just dreaming or if it's the real thing. Worse, he's been living under the bottle lately, so I don't even know if he can tell left from right. That's why I need you boys over there. I need a second pair of eyes to take a look if this thing's for real, and well..."

"Who better to ask than another freak with visions, right?" Sam said sardonically, finally catching Dean's attention.

"It's not that, Sam, and you know it," Bobby said mildly, "Just, you boys'll be reasonable about not-offing this poor sucker if he is supernatural, is all."

"What's going on?" Dean asked. Sam motioned for him to keep it down, and promised with a look that he would fill him in later.

"So in one of his visions, he actually saw the world end?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Bobby replied, and even over the phone Sam could hear the older hunter wincing, "He couldn't get very specific, though. He was calling from jail."

"Well this just gets better and better," Sam said wryly, "More and more credible, if you know what I mean."

"Don't get sassy with me, boy," Bobby snapped, "Leave the sass to that idjit brother of yours, one Winchester smart-ass is enough for me. I'm telling you, Sam. I think this guy is the real thing. Now whether or not he saw this 'Real End of the World' thing is a different story altogether. I'm thinking a couple of days out in the country, finding out if the damn world is actually ending ought to be worth the trouble."

Sam glanced at Dean, who was making dismissive motions with his hands and, wide-eyed, mouthing, "Just say yes!"

"Okay, Bobby," Sam said warily, "Count us in."

He hung up after jotting down the directions, and turned to his brother.

"You don't even know what the hunt's about, Dean."

"Don't care," Dean said simply, shrugging, "It's Bobby. We owe him."

"We do," Sam conceded, "But we're no good to anybody wiped-out, and to tell you the truth, I'm beat."

Dean looked at him worriedly for a second, and then raised a brow at Sam knowingly. "You're not beat, Sammy. But you think I am."

"Aren't you?" Sam asked, not in the mood to beat around the bush, "You barely eat, you hardly sleep, you never stop moving. It'll catch up with you soon enough man, and we can't get caught with our pants down like that in the middle of a job." He rubbed his eyes tiredly, "No matter how silly it ends up being."

"I eat," Dean said, pointedly taking a large bite of his cheeseburger. He grinned at Sam with a disgusting mouthful of food, "So, this job. What do you mean it might end up silly?"

"Dean," Sam said, leaning forward, looking both earnest, imposing and ultimately, impossibly irresistible, making Dean flinch. "Come on. We've been hopping from case to case like we never have before. We've been doing, what? Two, sometimes three cases a week? One a week used to be murder. You trying to set a record or what?"

"Two a week?" Dean asked, thoughtfully, "And there's like, what? Fifty-two weeks a year?"

"Yeah, so?"

"Nothing," Dean shrugged, "I'm fine, Sam."

"Sure you are," Sam said, flatly.

"So what's with this case?" Dean asked, "Bobby needs us, blah, blah, blah, on with the program."

Sam stared at him for a long, quiet moment, before shaking his head in defeat and taking a deep breath. "Local nut-job in a small town thinks he's seeing the end of the world in his dreams."

"And we believe him because...?"

"Because, amongst other things," Sam replied, "He dreamed up two sets of lottery numbers, played them, and won. They say he lost all the money eventually, became some sort of a street prophet, but that's beside the point. This guy sees the future, Dean. The lottery numbers weren't a fluke, and if that's true, then it's possible that …"

"… the world actually _is_ ending," Dean finished, almost casually, except his eyes were glinting a little, "Apocalypse and all that, right? Maybe he is the real thing. Worth a look, I guess. I mean," he wiggled his eyebrows at Sam, "If we're all gonna get screwed, he may as well tell us when and where, so we can doge it."

"Dean--"

"All right, all right," Dean said, grinning. "So serious! I don't know what's up with the fricking angels since they last tried to fuck with us, but their version of the apocalypse equates to Lucifer walking the Earth, right? If this dude can see it coming, then maybe we can prepare ourselves."

"If," Sam pointed out, "If he sees it. This may likely be just some whack-job-nutter, Dean. When Bobby called me, he said he was going to pick this guy up from jail."

"Well if he's nothing but your garden-variety delusional wacko," Dean said with a winning smile, "Then this might be the downtime you've been looking for, Sammy."

"I was thinking more along the lines of a bed and a shower," Sam said wryly, "But I guess that's too lofty an ambition."

Dean smirked as he polished off the last of his food and rose to his feet. "Gimme a sec to hit the can before we leave."

"Don't forget to powder your nose," Sam teased, as Dean flipped him the finger before walking off. Sam sighed, set aside his own empty plate and found his eyes drifting to Dean's doodled table napkins. He reached for them to see how the count stood.

_2 x 52 = 104..._

"Whatcha doing?" Dean asked from behind him a few moments later, sounding mildly accusing. They were doing that Winchester tango again; Sam knowing something and Dean knowing he knew, Sam knowing he knew and Dean knowing he knew he knew and so on, neither one willing to just grab the bull by the horns.

"Looking for a clean one, dude," Sam filled in, "Why'd you have to go and draw on everything? And what's up with the _Good Will Hunting _act?"

He was daring him to answer.

"Just bored," Dean said, flat and calm, even as he swiped at the table napkin in Sam's hand. "Local paper had a puzzle. This is mine." He made a show of wiping his own mouth before crumpling the napkin and tossing it on top of the table.

" " "

"'C'mere baby.'"

Sam woke up to the opening lines of Aerosmith's _Crazy_, playing on modest volume on the car stereo, underlined by Dean's soft, low singing.

"'You know you drive me up a wall the way you make good on all the nasty tricks you pull,'" Dean and Steven Tyler went on, "'Seems like we're makin' up more'n we're makin' love. It always seems you got somethin' on you mind other than me--' Heya Sam."

Sam cleared his throat, unsurprised that Dean should know he was awake before he could even peel his eyes open, "Wanna switch?" he asked with a wide, indulgent yawn, "You've been driving for hours."

"I don't mind," Dean murmured, "Too keyed up to sleep. 'Say you're leavin' on the seven-thirty train and that you're headed out to Hollywood...' I love this song, man. I think I heard it in '94. Good year. Good year."

"Yeah?" Sam asked, stretching his arms up behind him, which was as much of Sam's wingspan as the Impala could accommodate, "Fifteen. You didn't get the Impala 'til later."

"Started hunting with dad for real at roundabouts of fifteen," Dean said, "My first honest-to-god kill, you know, when it's all me, not him making wacky step-by-step's. That was a clean, clean hunt." He chuckled a little, "It took me a couple years later to even suspect maybe dad was doing something behind the scenes a little after all, making me think it was all me. Wouldn't put it past the man. Besides, hunts haven't come around that simple since."

Sam watched his older brother's face with a pensive smile. "Hey, speaking of dad... His journal's almost full. I think we're gonna need a new one soon."

"Yeah?" Dean asked, brows raising, "Who'd have thought."

"I know," Sam said, picking up said book from the glove compartment, "Kinda weird though, huh? He started this right after mom, and he worked on nothing else since."

"Yeah..." Dean murmured, glancing at his brother, wondering where this was going.

"I got into it after Jess," Sam added, quietly, "And we haven't let it go since, adding our own stuff. It was bound to get full... I'm kinda surprised it didn't happen sooner. Still... it's weird, you know?"

"Maybe we were expecting a magical bottomless journal," Dean joked, "Of all things that could have been supernatural, huh?"

Sam chuckled.

"I was thinking of scanning the pages," Sam said, "Turn everything we have here into a pdf file or something, so that it keeps better and we can have multiple copies. And instead of buying a new book, we can just make digital entries in the computer from here on out instead of writing it down."

"Your handwriting does suck," Dean said, "A what file?"

"You save it in the computer," Sam oversimplified flippantly, mildly annoying Dean who just let it slip as Sam continued, "We can even make an honest-to-god index, rig cross-references... might be easier for research eventually, especially if we can search for keywords. We can be twice as fast calling up stuff. We go everywhere with the laptop anyway."

"Sounds good," Dean said, noncommittal.

"What?" Sam asked, sensing his older brother's hesitation.

"Nothing."

Sam rolled back his eyes. "Dean – What?"

"I kinda like it old school, I guess," Deans said, "Not a big deal. I mean, I get it. Maybe it's time for an upgrade."

It was an understatement, Sam recognized, because in Dean-speak, upgrades were replacements, and replacements always meant leaving something behind, and leaving things behind was something Dean hated to do.

"It's everything he wrote, man," Sam assured him quietly, "Exactly how he wrote it, except it's on the screen instead of on paper. It's not like we'll be throwing the journal out. As a matter of fact, we'll keep it in a safe place, not have to bring it everywhere. That way we won't wear her out so much. I mean a gust of wind and we can lose a few pages. The post-its are losing their stick. The journal falls in a swamp or a river or even gets oil or blood or coffee spilled on it and we might lose the information, you know?"

"I get it," Dean said, mildly, keeping his eyes on the road. At Sam's breathy pause, like he was gathering wind to say something more, Dean glanced at him and insisted, "I do!"

"There's a 'but' I'm waiting for," Sam said.

"Your laptop could do that freezy thing again," Dean said.

"It would stop crashing if you start paying for the porn you surf," Sam said, "Or, we can also save several copies on a flashdisk or a CD that we keep somewhere else. One in the car, one in dad's storage locker, even one with Bobby. Back-up copies."

"We can't always lug a laptop around," Dean pointed out, "Like when we're in a fricking graveyard, or doing an exorcism. And electricity isn't always available, nor are electronics always reliable when the signals are all jumbled."

"We print out two sets," Sam said, "We'll put one in your bag, one in mine. We can even re-size it to something more convenient. We can even have our copies bound and water-proofed, you know, on glossy paper? I'm also thinking about getting one of those Kindle-things, so we have it like an e-book."

Dean wondered if he could make '_But holding it in my hands feels like dad's there with us_' sound just as logical. Because as Sam said, coffee had spilled on the journal before; blood too, and tears. Their father's and most certainly their own too.

"Sounds like you've been thinking about this for awhile," Dean commented instead, "What's with that?"

"I haven't, actually," Sam said, "I literally just thought about it recently. I guess you have to step back sometimes, to see things better."

"Step back?" Dean asked, irritably, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Nothing."

"Sam – What?"

"I haven't touched dad's journal in months, I guess," Sam admitted, quietly, "There was nothing in it that could help you, so there was nothing in it that interested me. I only had it back in my hands after you came back, and I just got all these ideas, you know? Just ways to do things better."

"Huh," Dean said, thoughtfully.

Sam shrugged, sinking into his seat a little in embarrassment, like he was four years old. Dean turned to him with a smirk.

"So being without me for months," he joked, "What do you think can make me better?"

Sam laughed, disarmed again. "You're kind of a hopeless case."

"I think that's a euphemism for you saying I'm perfect just as I am," Dean said, obtusely, "Which I always knew."

"Like I said," Sam said, "Hopeless."

"So you didn't do any cases while I was away?" Dean asked.

"It was getting you back or getting back at Lilith," Sam said, chuckling uneasily, "I think I lost it a little bit. There were some calls I didn't take, eventually passed them on to other hunters, and I hope I wasn't too late but... never had the guts to check, I guess. I'm... I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?" Dean asked, "You were allowed to be angry, Sam. Allowed to be sad. Heck, I'd be offended if you weren't."

"You told me to keep fighting," Sam said, looking out his window, "Told me to remember what you taught me. That's one of the things you taught best, that 'responsibility for other people' thing."

"You're allowed to grieve for my hide, brother," Dean told him wryly, in an effort to appease his guilt, "You're _supposed to_ grieve for my hide. Next time I formulate my dying wishes, I'll make sure to be more specific, put it in the fine print."

Sam looked at him, stricken. "There won't be a next time."

"It was a joke," Dean said lightly as he focused on the road, both the one they were literally on and the one that paved their future. "So. This Reade guy says we might all be kissing our asses goodbye any day now, right? So basically we've got the angels talking about the Apocalypse, and Bobby's street-prophet is also seeing the end of the world. You think we'd take a hint or something, huh?"

Sam snorted in agreement.

"Why couldn't your freaky vision things have sent us lottery numbers?" Dean asked.

"I'll write up a request," Sam said, dryly.

"So, what do you think of this guy?"

"He does seem harmless," Sam replied, "Just like Bobby said. I read up on him a bit too. He was a self-employed handyman, dreamed up a bunch of numbers and won about forty million dollars. The first time."

Dean whistled, "Nice."

"He got carried away," Sam narrated, "Partied a little too hard, and his first wife had pretty decent grounds to divorce him and run away with half his money. He marries wife number two, who tries to kill him. He got lucky, got out of that one alive. She's in jail, and he wins the lottery from dream numbers again. He falls in love, falls out. Spends left, then right. Drinks a lot, disturbs the peace a lot, so he spends on overpriced lawyers a lot too. Reade ran afoul of a couple hunters awhile back, just as Bobby said, whom he paid to get off his back. Millions just wash away over the years, somehow. Then he's a drunk on the streets, talking about the end of the world."

"How do we know he's the real deal?" Dean asked, "I mean aside from the two lottery numbers?"

"Like that's not enough?" Sam replied, wryly, "I think he also got out of wife number two's attempted murder by the skin of his teeth, 'cos he might have foreseen it too. It was just too close. There could be smaller, non-newsworthy stuff we'll only find out about after we talk to him."

"Bobby has a lot of weird friends, doesn't he?" Dean said, thoughtfully.

Sam shook his head in amusement, "I wouldn't open up that can of worms, Dean. 'Cos I'd say that bunch of people includes a freak and his older brother, who was pulled out of hell by an angel."

"Yeah," Dean snorted, realizing for the first time that talking to Sam about the things that had happened after he died, was becoming slightly easier for the both of them. They were brothers after all, and the best of friends. Maybe it was just a matter of time. Maybe Sam had been right when he said that talking could help, even just a little bit.

"I passed up on this job when you were... gone," Sam shared, as if his mind were moving along the same lines as Dean's, "And I wanted you back so badly. It called for salting and burning a priceless Grecian antique artifact that was a donation to a big state museum, Dean. We've never done anything like that, it would've been like an Ocean's Eleven heist."

"Yeah?"

"And then somewhere else there's this male ghost streaker in a college girl's dorm that no one wanted to get rid of," Sam went on, eyes alight, "And somewhere else, there's supposed to be three string puppets that would have conversations about the elections late at night."

"Supernatural political conversations?" Dean scoffed, "You must have missed me a lot to have skipped on that one."

"Maybe I wussed out 'cos I'm not used to having intellectual conversations anymore," Sam said, and the brothers exchanged acidic expressions.

" " "

"It's like walking into _Paradiso Perduto_," Sam muttered, looking up at the looming, vine-plagued, rusted gates of the address Bobby provided.

"You sure we have the right address?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," Sam said, craning his head to take a look beyond the wild grass and untamed foliage around the iron gates and beyond it. "I can see one of Bobby's cars parked somewhere in there."

Dean craned his neck too, and both brothers blanched at the sour sight of one of the weirder occupants of the Singer salvage yard. It was a compact, chick's car in scarred, faded matte-pink. Dean knew that Bobby had it tricked out to go insanely and enviably fast; it was the only way any right-thinking man could justify driving that piece of crap around short of it having any superpowers, or if Bobby had gotten some action at the backseat from a Victoria's Secret angel.

"I wanna see you in that thing," Dean smirked at Sam.

Sam snorted at him, "I can't fit in there, I'm too tall. You on the other hand..."

"Shut up," Dean muttered, as he pressed on the buzzer by the gate, not really expecting it to work until a surly voice retorted, "What?!"

"Looking for Bobby Singer and Paul Reade," Dean replied.

"I'll buzz you in," came the short reply, "You can drive up to the rotunda."

"You heard the man," Dean said, slipping back inside the car, Sam doing the same. The heavy gates whined, but opened inward. Dean drove the Impala up the cobblestone driveway, and glanced at the rearview mirror as the gates shut behind them.

"This place must have been something a couple years back," Sam said, glancing out the windows. Old, shady tress lined the two-lane, curving, cobblestone driveway, their thick roots creeping and cracking into the cement, like curling fingers reclaiming what once was theirs. The road was strewn with fallen branches and leaves, and the brothers drove past untamed gardens. The wild greenery surrounded a colonial home in an odd shade of mossy green-gray-white, the sick color of neglect. The Impala rounded a fountain that looked like falling into its tepid water ensured dying of some exotic disease, and stopped at the main entrance.

Heavy, carved double-doors opened, and Bobby stepped out of the house, looking relatively immaculate despite the permanent sand and soil and oil that trailed after him, compared to his disheveled, slightly squat, fifty-plus-year-old companion.

Paul Reade looked like he was on the tail-end of a hangover. His already-lined face was screwed up in pained irritation, and his clear blue eyes were mostly hidden in a photo-phobic squint. They widened a little at the sight of the boys, but then re-settled when he frowned.

"You said you were bringing in help," he snapped at Bobby, "Not two kids."

"Overgrown ones, I promise ya," Bobby said, wryly, extending his hand out to shake the brothers' in warmer welcome, "Boys, this here's Paul Reade."

"I'm Sam," Sam said, "This is my brother Dean. Bobby said you needed some help."

"Not from you, get outta my house," Reade said, venomously, "Outta my damn town."

"What's with the attitude?" Dean asked, looking at Bobby.

"I don't know," Bobby admitted, turning to Reade, "Paul, what the hell?"

Reade stared at him, and then jerked his head shakily, "Nothing. I'm being a jerk. Come on in, boys." He opened the doors wider, and then stalked inside ahead of his guests.

Sam glanced at Dean, and then at Bobby. "What's his problem?"

"He's hungover," Bobby said, "And spent a night in jail. He's a nice guy, I promise."

The three hunters stepped inside the mansion, and Dean gawked at the high-ceilinged, sunlit, marble hall. The entrance led to a massive lobby lorded over by two curving staircases meeting at the middle, and leading to rooms above. The lobby was lined by anterooms, and everything was lit by the sun streaming in from long, slim windows that let in both light and the view of the untamed gardens from outside. There were more windows than furniture, as a matter of fact, because the neglected house was empty save for the occasional, battered chair.

"You're squatting in your old house?" Dean asked, calling after Reade, who emerged from one of the side rooms with bottles of beer. He handed them around, and then kind of just... plopped on the ground wherever he was standing.

"Please, sit," he said, motioning for the floor, almost graciously.

Dean and Sam exchanged a look, but did as they were invited to do.

"Tell us about this vision you had," Sam said, quietly, "Exactly what you saw, every single detail you can remember. I can guarantee you that everything your mind has shown you will matter, even things that you don't think mean anything."

"You guarantee?" Reade scoffed, "And how would you know?"

"I promised you help, Reade," Bobby said mildly, before Dean could open his mouth in defense of his brother, "Just do as he says."

Reade took a fortifying gulp of his beer before beginning. "Maybe I should get more of the heavier stuff."

"Later," Dean said, tone clipped, "Vision?"

"I don't usually see myself in them," Reade began, "It just looks and feels like it's real, like I'm already there. I remember standing by my door, right where you just entered. It was nighttime, I was just standing by my door. The air was... thick, you know? Sick-carbony or something. Fucking toxic, smelled like those wacky super-glues I used to uh... nevermind. Something was going on, 'cos there was this tick-tick-ticking sound, small and crisp, and I could see worms and insects kind of just coming out from the wood, you know, birds taking to the sky, all headed in the same direction. Like they all knew something we didn't and they were trying to get away.

"The flapping of the wings," Reade continued, "That's what got me to look up. The moon was full, and then a massive plume of smoke just rose up to the skies, made it black, and the moon – it was just gone. Then I heard the screaming, cars screeching, people running, and the sirens.

"My house is pretty far from the center of town," he went on, "But the air was bad. I was coughing. I thought maybe I should go back inside, so I did. And then suddenly, there was this... this white-hot blast, sending me to the wall. The windows burst, glass raining everywhere. But there were no more sounds. I thought I had busted my ears, might have blacked out. I stepped outside after that, and everything was just gone, you know? The trees, the grass, my gates were even melted. There used to be buildings and houses outside my property, but there was practically nothing left. Just... shells, a burning wasteland. I was all alone. End of the world stuff, as I told you. Looked like _I Am Legend_. Did y'all see that?"

"No," Dean replied.

"Neither did I," Reade shrugged, "So I guess I meant the poster. Without the dog."

"When did you dream this up?" Dean asked.

"About a week ago," Reade replied.

"Have you ever had a dream like it before?" Sam asked.

"The last time I dreamed up something that made me feel like the fucking Earth was ending," Reade gulped, "I saw my wife pushing me down the damn stairs. Got outta that one by the skin o' my teeth. Then I saw her cutting at my brake line. That was a closer one."

"Have you ever heard of a song that goes 'I have a funny feeling,'" Dean said wryly, making Sam's eyes roll, "'You don't love me any--'"

"Dean, shut up."

"I gave her another chance," Reade said, "After that first attempt. But that second... well. Bitch is in jail now, you know."

"Your... your visions," Bobby said, tossing Dean a warning glare, "When did they start?"

"I've always had them," Reade replied, "As long as I can remember, I guess that's why I never thought of it as useful or weird, not a big deal really. I can't control them, can't get them at will. I just dream, like once in awhile this time-door opens and I'm allowed a peek inside, you know? This ex-girlfriend of mine in middle-school, she taught me the term 'deja vu.' I was like, 'Oh! Cool!' Sometimes I'd wake up finding the headline on the newspaper familiar, or knowing how many lines my toasted bread would have, or what the kid in front of me in class would be wearing. Little things, random stuff. I was always like, 'So yeah, 'deja vu!' I had a word for it now, and it stuck. When I got older, I dreamed up the lotto fucking numbers one night, right? And when I woke up, I thought, 'When I see those numbers on TV tonight, it's gonna be like deja vu.' Then I suddenly felt like I got hit by lightning. I was a fricking idiot all this time! So I decided to bet on the numbers, and that was my first forty million. The lotto was the first time I realized I wasn't feeling deja vu after all. I know things ahead of time!"

"Forty mil, huh?" Dean said, "At least you made up for lost time."

Reade gave him a sour look. "Anyway, after what I saw this time around... I talked to the local shrink, who was trying to convince me I was nuts. I talked to the cops, they didn't bother with me. I went to the Church, and the priest told me some mumbo-jumbo about the changes I was supposed to make in my life. The only one who would listen to me was the fucking bartender."

"You were preaching the end of the world in front of the supermarket too," Bobby added.

"That's probably from spending too much time at the bar," Reade said, smiling sickly, "So the cops picked me up, the only guy I could think of to call and who'd believe me is you and your hunting buddies, Singer, so now here we all are."

"Do you ever get dreams that don't mean anything?" Sam asked.

"Sure, like everybody," Reade replied, "I dreamed about this broad I thought I was gonna get in the sack, once. I was so, so sure and I even started getting sweet on her, until she started calling the cops. I don't think that's a premonition. I think I just had that dream because I haven't gotten laid in awhile."

The three hunters blanched, but otherwise kept their mouths shut.

"So what you saw," said Dean, "Probably isn't the end of the world, just the end of this town."

"Probably," Reade shrugged, "I don't know, that's why you people are here. I guess I just said that because it copies better. You know, if you're standing outside the supermarket you can't get very specific. It had to be catchier."

Sam's brows rose, "Right," he agreed, only to indulge the older man.

"Listen, I got an idea," Reade said, "Had a really good dream on some sporting numbers last night. What say we bet money, and then we can use that as a test, huh? See if you win and if I'm the real deal and what I saw is something you wanna work on? If not, then you can just pony on out of here, pretty as you please, and at least someone took me seriously for a couple of hours."

"Sounds great to me!" Dean said, eyes lighting up, and Sam could have heard the actual ka-ching! in that green gaze.

"Okay," Reade grinned, "In the meantime, you can bunk here at my house. God knows I have a lot of room. No furniture, but I turn on the electricity at night, I got working bathrooms and running water. At least it's free."

"We've stayed at much worse places, I can guarantee that," Dean said, "And we got a couple of sleeping bags and camping gear in the car, so we can just grab them and settle. Thanks, man."

"You mean y'all got sleeping bags?" Reade asked.

"Standard hunter's supply fare," Bobby affirmed, "Why?"

"Got one for me?"

" " "

"So how much did you bet?" Sam asked, as the brothers listened on the Impala's stereo to find out if they'd won anything, later that evening. Paul Reade's house had the basics, but no TV or radio.

"Almost everything we saved up the last couple of weeks," Dean grinned, "Oh, we are gonna make a bundle, Sammy. Bobby says this guy's the real deal, and I can live with that."

"It's a test," Sam told him, warily, "You know that, right? What if he's wrong, Dean? He said so himself, he gets meaningless dreams too."

"This'll work," Dean said, determinedly, shushing his brother as the results of the track was being announced, "Here we go..."

" " "

The frustrated, primal scream echoed across the property.

"I think you'd better hide," Bobby told Reade warily, who was cooking them dinner from canned food in the kitchen.

The double doors slammed open a few rooms away. Reade's eyes were wide as saucers. He looked around the glaringly empty kitchen. When he decided to do without the furniture, he never imagined he would be needing it just to have something to hide behind.

"Reade!" Dean hollered.

"Dean," his kid brother said, trailing after the huffing elder Winchester, "He never said it was the real thing, he said it was a test--"

"Reade!" Dean bellowed.

"Help me," Reade said to Bobby in a small voice.

"Oh for god's sakes," Bobby muttered, looking around the room for somewhere he could temporarily stash the little man until he could calm Dean down.

"I smell food," they heard Dean exclaim, "I smell food!"

His pounding footsteps sounded nearer and nearer as he followed the smell of canned chili toward the kitchen.

"Oh god," Reade yelped, just as Dean burst into the room with fury in his eyes. Reade jumped, let out a squeal, and then ran for the back door.

Dean, spotting his prey, followed like a predator.

"Dean!" Sam exclaimed, grabbing for his jacket. Shaking free, Dean ran straight into Bobby who blocked his way.

"Get your wits together, boy!" Bobby managed to say, as Dean struggled against him.

"I'm gonna wring his neck!"

"He said it was a test," Sam reasoned from behind him. He pressed a hand to Dean's shoulder, "Dean. Man, come on."

"Lemme go," Dean told his two companions through gritted teeth and flaring nose, "I'm not gonna hurt him, I'm just gonna tell him it's not nice to mislead people."

Sam bit back a laugh, shoulders quaking. Dean threw his younger brother a glare.

"We lost a thousand dollars, Sammy," Dean said darkly, "Of our hard-earned, too little money."

"We'll get it back, man," Sam assured him, "You've got two hustlers in this family now. It shouldn't take us too long to get it back."

Dean's eyes narrowed in irritation but he calmed, and he really did mean what he said about not wanting to hurt the man. He rolled back his eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled.

"Good," Bobby said, releasing his hold on Dean with a pat, "Come on, you boys get started on the food. I'm gonna pick up the quivering mess of our host before he pees himself. Talk it over and figure out if you wanna stick around for this case or not."

" " "

Bobby found Paul Reade cowering in the backseat of the Impala, parked on the rotunda of the house.

"Last place he'd look," Reade said with a shrug, but he was still wide-eyed, staring at Bobby, "Am I safe?"

"From him?" Bobby said, as he opened the door as he pulled Reade out, "Yeah. From me, though... not so much."

"But you didn't bet nothin'!" Reade exclaimed, "You were with me all this time!"

Bobby grabbed Reade by the collar and pressed him against the car. "You have been acting funny around those boys since they got here, and I got a feeling you gave them bad numbers and I wanna know why."

"It's not my fault they used the damn numbers," Reade spat out, "I said it was a fucking test!"

"Yeah, but you sussed him out, knew by his behavior he was gonna bet whatever he had," Bobby said, "He trusted you because I trusted you. They're here because I needed them, so this is all on me. And you are seriously pissing me off. Now, seeing as I have to both dent my account finding a way to get them back their thousand bucks and dent my brain even harder trying to find a way to make it appear that I'm not giving them any money, I figured the least you can do is give me an answer."

Reade stared at Bobby, "You gotta get them outta here."

"Why?"

"I don't know them," Reade replied, shakily, "But I saw them in my dream too. If they stick around, I think they're gonna die."

**To be continued...**


	3. Count Us In

**Author: Mirrordance**

**Title: Open, Shut**

**Summary:** A street prophet foresees a deadly disaster. He goes to the only people who would believe him: the Winchesters and Bobby Singer. It's an open and shut case except the only solution is- how do you empty a town of four thousand people? Post-_Family Remains_.

**hey guys!**

First off, thanks to all who read, alert-ed, favorite-d and especially all who reviewed the first two posted parts of _Open, Shut_. To those wonderful reviewers, I hold you explicitly responsible for the quick posting of this next part; I did warn everyone that when I get excited about responses, I get undisciplined and post quickly, haha :) Thank you for taking the time, and I do hope everyone (reviewers, lurkers, skimmers, quiet readers, just _everyone_) enjoys this next part.

Note though that I am just a little bit apprehensive about this because this chapter raises a potentially debatable character issue (I give Dean an OCD-like preoccupation with numbers that I _promise _will make more sense later, haha... Hint though: in 5.11, Dean gets asked "_Is there a quota? How many people do you have to save?_" and _Open, Shut _helps take him to the despairing conclusion, which is "_All of them."_) Anyway, would eventually love to hear what you guys think about that. But that'll be for later, haha. As always, c&c's are always welcome and without further ado, _Chapter 2: Count Us In_:

" " "

**Open, Shut**

" " "

**2: Count Us In**

" " "

"So, what are you thinking?"

Dean looked up at Sam from the writings he was absently making on the outdated newspaper he'd found in the kitchen. He and Sam had some of the crappy meal, but left most of it to their errant host and Bobby, who still hadn't come back.

"Like," Dean clarified, "Do I wanna leave, you mean?"

"Yeah," Sam replied, "I mean we did get burnt here."

"I don't know," Dean admitted, "I mean you guys were right. It's my fault I put all the damn eggs in one basket. Whatever. But something doesn't feel right, though, walking away from this. I mean, what if it's true?"

"Well, how long do you plan to stick around to find that out?"

"A couple of days," Dean replied with a grimace, as he jotted down a few other things, "This whole thing's supposed to happen on a full moon, right, that vision of his? And the next full moon's in what, three days?"

"I'll check but I think so," Sam agreed.

"So we do what we can in that time," Dean resolved, "And if nothing happens, then great and we're outta here. You okay with that?"

"I guess," Sam said with a grim smile, "As long as you try and keep your hands away from Reade's neck, then we should be good."

"I'll try," Dean snorted, as he and Sam turned toward the sound of the door opening. Bobby was dragging Reade into the room by the neck of his shirt, pushing him to the kitchen. The ex-millionaire looked meek and shrunken, his shoulders closed in on himself, body tight and gaze miserable and afraid as he looked at Dean.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, "I guess I'm a fake."

"You guess?" retorted Bobby, "Tell 'em what you told me."

Reade bit his lip and gulped. "I made it up, all of it. The dream, the numbers, everything. I just really, really needed someone to pick me up from jail and there was no one else but Singer. I didn't know he'd drag anyone else down here. I just really needed help and I had nobody, and then I just had to keep up the lie."

Bobby released his grip on the man's collar and looked at the Winchesters apologetically, "Sorry for hauling your asses all the way down here, boys. I can reimburse the--"

"Don't you dare," Dean told him quickly, tearing his gaze from the pitiful Reade, feeling all traces of his anger ebb, "Not the first time we went into a town on a bust, Bobby. I'm just glad the world ain't ending in a few days, huh?"

"Yeah," Bobby winced, "Hey, I'm driving outta this dump tonight. Got better things to do than getting conned by a damn drunk. You coming with?"

"Well if there's nothing to stay for," Dean said with a shrug before peering closely at Reade's face, "You sure about this, man?"

Reade looked him in the eye sharply, and said "Yes."

" " "

Sam took the wheel of the Impala a couple of hours into their drive, when Dean finally gave in to the need for some sleep. Bobby was driving his miserable car in front of them when Dean pulled over to switch seats with Sam.

Bobby stopped his car too, when he noticed the Winchesters slowing down. Dean, dead on his feet, grumbled and stumbled into the passenger seat, closing the door with finality and leaning against it to sleep. Sam's phone rang and he answered it before stepping inside the driver's seat of the car.

"Everything okay?" Bobby asked.

"Yeah," Sam replied quietly, "My turn to drive 's all."

"Good," Bobby said, "Your idjit brother not sleeping again?"

"You got it," Sam sighed, glancing at the man passed out on the passenger seat, "Guess I'm glad this job's a no-go, if you know what I mean. He needs some time off."

"Hey Sam," said Bobby, "I just got a call from a hunter, further east. You boys go on to wherever you're headed next, I'll go give him a hand."

"Anything we can help with?"

"Nah," Bobby said, "It's probably nothing, and I'm already the back-up. I'm sure you'll find something better to do. And like you said, your brother could use the time."

"Well, just call," Sam said.

"I will," Bobby replied breezily, "And I do appreciate you comin' out, even if it's all for nothing."

"You've always done it for us," Sam said, "Anytime, man. Hey, uh..." he hesitated, "You're sure Reade made all that up, right? I mean, it's okay for us to leave, right?"

"I'm sure," Bobby said, "Absolute certain-sure, Sam. I wouldn't leave otherwise, you know that. Besides, if he honestly thought the world was ending, why the hell would he say otherwise to the only people who'll help him? All's good, son. You boys take care now."

"You too Bobby," Sam said, hanging up.

" " "

Sam pulled over into a motel not far from the state line and just across the street from a brightly-lit diner. Dean had been asleep for hours and Sam was hoping he could take that sleepiness with him to an honest-to-god bed, but his older brother felt recharged upon waking up and had again sank into the delusion that a few hours in the car was all he needed before hitting the next job.

Defeated, Sam let himself be dragged to the diner instead of immediately grabbing a room at the motel. Besides, he was a little bit hungry from their practically non-existent canned dinner.

The brothers settled into a booth, Dean making the automatic request for a cup of coffee and Sam making the automatic effort to try and talk him out of it.

"You're keyed up as it is," Sam scolded him, turning to the waitress, "Give him decaf."

"I need it," Dean snapped at his brother, but he grinned at the waitress, focusing that megawatt version of his standard smile, the one that practically guaranteed he would get whatever he wanted, from anyone. The woman shakily smiled back.

"You've had too much," Sam said and turned imploring eyes on the woman, the 'emo' version of his standard puppy-dog look, the one that practically guaranteed he would get whatever _he_ wanted, from anyone. "Please don't get him any. He's sick."

The woman's eyes widened in mild panic as she turned from one brother to the other before she scurried away, muttering at them to talk it over first and that she'd just come back.

"Nice, Sammy," Dean muttered, rubbing at his eyes, "_Nice_."

"Whatever," Sam said, rolling his eyes back in irritation, "You need to sleep. We need to stop. So we're gonna have a decent dinner here, and then we're crashing next door before we go anywhere else or do anything else, okay?"

"Who made you boss?"

"You lost your vote when you put all the money in your charge on a bad bet," Sam said primly, "I'm picking up the tab, so I get to call the shots."

"Bitch."

"You can have decaf," Sam said, magnanimously.

"That's for wimps."

"Live with it!"

"I don't wan-"

"Look, a lover's quarrel!"

The brothers' heads shot up at the new arrival, standing by their booth. It was a smirking, dark-haired Eurasian man, standing tall and looming large, all elegant, angular bones, golden skin and small, glinting eyes. He was dusty, for lack of a better term, wearing clothes that fit perfectly, like they once would have been pricey and tailored if he hadn't been using it while rolling down the side of a mountain. He had a bruised cheek and knuckles encrusted with dried blood, possibly from a run-in with someone else's face. He smelled like gunpowder and some sort of herb, and he could have had 'Hunter' tattooed on his forehead at this point.

"Do we know you?" Dean asked, irritably.

"Nope," he replied, scooting over obtusely next to Sam, "Doesn't matter, nobody does. So. The Winchester brothers. Fancy running into you here. The name's Wei."

"Wei like 'Wrong Way?'" Dean said, darkly, "No one invited you to sit here, buddy."

Sam frowned but made room anyway, not wanting to make a scene.

Wei shrugged, "I'll be out of your hair in a sec. I guess not everything they say about you's true, huh? Most of the hunters I know think you're dead."

"I don't mind keeping it that way," Dean said warily, glancing at Sam.

The Winchesters could never seem to reconcile the idea of their general anonymity alongside the fact that they seemed to be fairly well known in hunting circles. Their father had more contacts than they did and seemed -in afterthought- to have been shielding them from a good deal of that subculture for one reason or another. They started out as kids and these men were dangerous, so that was one reason their dad might have kept them away. The fact that Sam had something supernatural running in his blood, and after that Gordon Walker incident a year ago, Dean couldn't blame him.

"You wouldn't believe the stuff that's out there," Wei said, "I've heard everything from you got nabbed by the feds and burned to a crisp in a gas accident, to rotting in hell and the most ridiculous of all, saved by an angel and fighting for God."

Dean's lips curled up in a grin, "You can start a new one if you like. Why does it have to be bat-crazy shit like that? People could just say something like, 'He's married and has 2.5 kids, decided to raise alpacas'."

"Now that's crazy," Wei said, calling for the waitress.

"Hey!" Dean complained, "You ain't stayin'."

"Sure I am," Wei said, "I mean we're gonna have to learn to work together, man."

"What?" Dean and Sam asked at the same time.

"I'm assuming you're here headed for that job with Singer," Wei said, "The street prophet case."

"No," Dean said, "We were on our way out, it's a bust."

"Sure it is," Wei said, sarcastically, "Or what, you wussed out? Shoulda known. The one thing I heard about the Winchesters that I know is true is that when it gets hot, you bust outta the kitchen."

"What are you talking about?" Sam asked, looking genuinely confused.

Wei tilted his head at the other man's expression in wonder. "I heard you were good with earnest, Sam, but I'm actually, _actually_ starting to believe you really don't know what's going on here."

"Quit with the riddles," Deans snapped, "And just spit it out."

"Singer called me about three hours ago," Wei said, "Needed help with a job, I was in the area, so I thought I'd take a stab at it. I'm on my way there now."

"We're going straight to the source," Dean said determinedly, grabbing his phone and dialing Bobby's number.

" " "

"Bobby!" Dean yelled at the buzzer by the massive irons gates, hours later.

"If you don't calm down and stop bellowin'," came the irate reply, "You're gonna be stayin' out there all damn night!"

"Lemme in!" Dean demanded as he stalked to the driver's side of the car and closed the door.

The iron gates swung open and the Impala impatiently swooshed in - a reflection of her driver's frustrations as always - trailed by Wei's graphite Dodge Viper. Dean had both appreciated and dismissed the car when he first saw it parked on the lot. He had whistled, but said as an aside to Sam, "Mid-life crisis, dude."

Bobby and Paul Reade were already waiting by the entrance to the house, and Sam could tell by the way Dean was drumming on the wheel that he was aching for a fight.

He pulled up to a smart stop and then stormed out of the car with "What the hell, Bobby?!"

Bobby put up a calming hand, "Inside."

"No," Dean demanded, "Now!"

"He was trying to save your miserable life!" Reade retorted from beside Bobby, "I told him I knew your faces. I saw you in my dream. You and him," he nodded at Sam, "I saw you die, die along with this town, all right? We wanted you out, but I got the feeling and Singer confirmed it, that shit like that isn't reason enough for the likes of you to leave, so there! Now you know, all right? So get the hell away."

"Is this true, Bobby?" Sam asked, because Dean was still breathing heavily, trying to digest everything.

"Yeah," Bobby sighed, "He's the real deal, Sam, just like I told 'ya. He saw you boys die here, and I can't have that." He looked at Dean meaningfully, "Not another time, not ever again."

Dean flinched and looked away, remembering that they had an outsider in their midst, Wei's sharp eyes narrowing even further as he quietly took in the situation.

"So this town is really gonna die," Dean said carefully, "And everything and everyone in it in a few days, on the full moon. You ah... know exactly how?"

"What sort of a crazy person are you?" Reade demanded, "I just said you're probably gonna die here--"

"The way I see it," Dean said, "We know when this shit is going down, right? We know what's gonna happen and when. What we don't know is how we get to that point. We have a few days to try and stem this thing and one way or another, Sam and I will clear out before the full moon. We can't die here if we ain't here, right? So we work as best we can in the days that we do have. Geez. You coulda just said all this and saved us the time. And the gas." He looked at Bobby humorously, "_Now_ you get to reimburse me."

" " "

"First order of business is to figure out what will cause the explosion," Sam said as the five men camped out in the living room, laptops and papers strewn around them.

"Oh we figured that out right away," Bobby said, "There's a pesticide factory in town. There's nothing else around here that has the juice to completely floor this place. An explosion there could end Finn's Canyon, easy. And the toxic smell fits."

"So, it's still running?" Dean asked.

"Yup," Reade confirmed.

"How's it been running the last few years?" Wei asked.

"It runs smooth and keeps this place alive," Reade replied, "Such as it is. Everyone in town is related to someone who works there. Business hasn't been going well in years, but people take care of it 'cos it's the lifeblood of this place anyway. Regular check-ups and maintenance, the works. And no problems, not for the last eighty-plus years it's been running."

"I reckon it's the eighty-plus years thing we should be worried about," Bobby said gruffly, "When was the last run-through, and who did it?"

"I don't know," Reade said with a shrug, "I never worked there, I don't know anything else about that place, man."

"Probably some government or environmental agency," Dean said, "Or a private contractor. We can look that up and pay their local guys a visit, find out if the plant is having issues."

"We also have to think of the possibility of negligence," Sam piped in, "Or even deliberate sabotage. I mean, are these regular checks being done properly? Will someone profit from this business going bust? Do they have a competitor or someone who wants to take over the business? Has it been recently placed on some sort of insurance? You did say the business has been declining... maybe the owners wanna get rid of it and make money from insurance instead. Or even just a disgruntled employee who wants to burn down the place."

"We also have to think of contingencies," Bobby said, "If the checks turn up nothing, then the only thing we can do is to empty this town out."

"Good luck with that," Reade snorted.

"Bobby's right," Sam winced, "We gotta be prepared for that if that's what this all comes down to. Figure out the resources this town has – cops, firemen, doctors, public transport. We gotta figure out how to communicate evacuation to them, make sure kids don't get trampled, the sick and elderly are evacuated properly, and all of it in good time. We have to figure out how many people there are in this town to begin with, and how large a potential explosion could be. We also need to check out the other towns near here, make sure the people have some sort of shelter to go to after we evacuate them."

"In short," Dean breathed, recognizing the magnitude of their job, "If we can't find and stop what'll cause this explosion, we gotta be fricking FEMA, the merry little five of us."

" " "

Paul Reade handed everyone a different colored Sharpie and pointed at one of the wide, blank white walls of his living room, allowing them to write down whatever they needed to.

"You're kidding," Dean breathed, looking like a kid in a playground. He snatched the black pen from Sam and forced the blue one Reade handed him on to his younger brother.

"So how do we go about this?" Sam asked, accepting the switch nonchalantly.

Dean was bouncing in anticipation of writing something on the wall. He drew out a long, vertical line that was as tall as he was, effectively cutting the white wall in two columns. "Left side is preventing the disaster, right side is surviving it, if it happens."

Sam, ever-anal, wrote down headings on the two columns: '_Prevention_' on the left, '_Survival_' on the right. "If we want to prevent the disaster," he said thoughtfully, "We gotta look at one: human agency, and two: plant malfunction." He wrote more words as the five men discussed their plans.

"The human thing could be from either negligence or incompetence, or deliberate intent," Bobby went on, "And the plant malfunction thing is just the routine inspections and operations."

"And then if we can't prevent this," Dean added, "Then it's all about evacuation."

The five men studied what Sam had jotted down on the wall. One column went:

_ Prevention: _

_ A. Human Agency _

_ 1. by Negligence / Incompetence _

_ 2. by Intent _

_ B. Plant Malfxn _

The other column went:

_Survival: _

_ EVACUATION_

"I can look into the human agency part," Sam volunteered, "Check if they have disgruntled employees, new hires, poor performers, overworked people. I can also read through their financials and the legal books, go see if anyone thinks they can profit from sabotaging the plant."

"Good call, law-boy," Dean said, approvingly, "Hey, Bobby. You think you can do the plant inspections and ops? You've got a more kind-of technical background."

"Yeah, I can do that," Bobby agreed.

"Mid-life-Crisis and I can work on the evac plan," Dean said, pointing his Sharpie at Wei, "You check out what this town is capable of: cops, firemen, transportation, doctors, volunteers, things like that. I'll check out how large this disaster could be, how many people we need to move, where they are, and where and how we can drag 'em to the next town over."

"What do I do?" Reade asked.

"No offense, Paul," Sam said, "But moving around with the 'town crazy' is not going to give us much credibility if we need information or to mobilize people."

"I can do housekeeping," Reade decided, "I'll cook and clean."

Dean smiled slyly at Sam, "So. What's a good cover?"

"Department of Homeland Security sounds about as good as any," Bobby said, "Emergency capability and terrorist prevention spot-checks."

"Sounds good to me," Dean said, "You are the master of all bullshit, Bobby. It's a dark, dark gift."

"Timelines?" Bobby smirked at him.

"We got three days to beat this thing before it hits on the full moon," Sam said, "We can't do anything else tonight. Reconvene tomorrow, and then we play catch up. I suggest we sleep," he looked pointedly at his brother, "Timing's tight, we might not get another chance to rest 'til this is over."

" " "

Sam woke to the dull, small sounds of a keypad suffering beneath agitated fingers. He opened his eyes, the sight of Dean's hunched back sharpening as he blinked to clear them. Dean was sitting on crossed legs facing the wall, and his arms and elbows moved busily.

"Go back to sleep, Sam," Dean murmured, not even turning to look. Sam marveled at how he could have known he was awake, until Dean turned his head slightly and explained, "Your breathing changes."

"You're creepy," Sam muttered, crawling sleepily toward his brother, "Whatcha doin'?"

"Can't sleep," Dean said, looking back down at the open laptop and sheafs of paper he had in front of him, "Thought I might as well work."

"Did you take any coffee?" Sam asked, mildly accusatory.

"If I did, would I admit it?" Dean replied.

"No," Sam admitted ruefully, "But I'd be able to tell if you're lying."

Dean actually smiled a little. "No, all right? I didn't. I got what you were saying about needing the rest bit, okay? I even took some whiskey to help me out." He shook a half-empty bottle in Sam's direction, "But I really can't sleep, man. I guess a lot's on my mind, 's all. And I don't like having my eyes shut 'cos I don't know them."

Dean nodded his head in the direction of Reade and Wei, who were also on sleeping bags in the large living room. They had all chosen suitable 'camping spots' in various corners for the night.

"We can take shifts--"

"I can't sleep anyway," Dean shrugged, "You might as well get the shut-eye. Hey, Sam. You know how many people are in Finn's Canyon? About four fricking thousand. If we had to move 'em out, we'd be moving out four thousand people."

Sam winced, "Shit, man."

"We got six regular cops in this town on one station," Dean said, "Eight firemen on one engine. Six on-call volunteers doing miscellaneous things for the town service. Mayor's office is five people in a small house. We got one school, one small hospital, one home for the elderly, one church, one bed and breakfast... fucking nightmare getting everyone out, and there isn't a lot of resources to tap."

"Yeah..." Sam said distractedly, spotting another of Dean's doodle-notes amidst the research.

"It's that puzzle from the newspaper--" Dean tried to say when he caught the direction of his brother's gaze. The excuse had worked before but Sam was weary tonight, and too keyed up about the ramifications of the upcoming job to keep his mouth shut this time.

"Cut the crap, Dean," Sam sighed, "You've been at this for days now."

Dean bit his lip, glossed over the topic altogether, "Hey. How many people did Moses get out of Egypt in the Exodus?"

Sam ran a hand over his face in frustration, "I don't know, all right? We can look it up later. Listen--"

"'Pharaoh,'" Dean cut him off, lowering his voice, "'Let my people go.' All I need is a magical fairy wand."

"A staff, Dean," Sam sighed in resignation, "He had a staff. But I would pay to see you wave a wand around."

"Whatever can help us, dude," Dean said, "'Cos this is beginning to look just as impossible."

"But what else can we do but move forward, right?" Sam said, wearily.

"Hey, uh..." Dean hesitated, "I was thinking maybe I should give you the keys to the car, and you can get outta here."

"What?" asked Sam, "Where'd this come from?"

"I mean," Dean explained, "There's no sense in the two of us dying here."

"No one's dying, Dean," Sam insisted, "We were gonna leave, right, that's what you said? One way or another, we're leaving before the full moon hits."

"But what if..." Dean asked, "What if we get stuck somewhere and we can't? I mean, I don't wanna risk you, I'd rather not risk--"

"Well I'd rather not risk you either but here we both are," Sam said, "I'm not leaving you here, all right? And we're getting out of this town together, no matter what happens."

"But you don't have to be here," Dean argued, "Why risk it if you don't have to be here? I, on the other hand, I have to be here. I have to be here."

"What are you talking about?" Sam asked, "If we had other hunters who could do this now, I would rather we were elsewhere. There are other hunters out there who don't have a credible street-prophet seeing their deaths, man. The only reason we're sticking around to do what we can is because they're not here, we are, and this town is running out of time. But I'm telling you right now, neither of us is gonna be here when that full moon rises, you hear me?"

"I have to be here--"

"Dean!" Sam snapped, "You hear me?"

"Keep it down," Dean told him quietly, looking in the direction of first Bobby, and then Wei. He knew that the rising tone of the conversation could easily wake the other hunters.

"Sam..." Dean said, and his tone sounded so lonely and helpless that Sam quieted and waited for him to continue. They stayed silent for a long moment, making sure that the others were really still asleep. Dean took more swigs of whiskey in the quietness, before suddenly perking up.

"Yeah," Dean said, "I mean maybe I should, right? I'm pretty sure I can fix it. Since you're the genius, you could probably help me work this out."

Sam looked at him like he really had lost his mind, "You sound like you're continuing a conversation that started in your head."

Dean frowned, and then appeared to come to a decision. "Okay, Sammy. There's like, 365 days in a year, right? And ten years, that's like, 3,650 days."

Sam remembered the first number he saw from Dean's diner doodles, "Yeah..."

"So if, if I tortured a soul a day, that's like, 3,650 people," Dean began.

_3,650_... it had been so precise, Sam remembered when he first saw the number. Dean had once told him that he lost count of how many souls he had hurt, but if he had tortured a soul a day, that made 3,650 victims over the course of ten years. It was why every person they saved decreased that number, as if his actions now could somehow make up for the actions of the past. Every person they lost, Dean added to his debt.

It was also why they were doing too many jobs; the closer that number got to zero, the sooner Dean would be able to find some sort of peace within himself. In the meantime, the nightmares went on, as did the compulsive counting.

Sam stared at his brother breathlessly, not knowing what else to say other than, "I think I know where this might be going."

"I know you do, Sammy," Dean said, before taking another drink off of the bottle, averting his eyes, and disguising his humiliation by rambling on about the comparatively colder math of logic, "3,650 people, man. I gotta make up for it. At the rate we're going, it's gonna take me more than a fricking decade to save that many people. Now I'm trying so damn hard, but I can't go any faster, and I can't carry this shit inside me that fucking long.

"So I've been thinking," Dean continued, and he was getting that slightly manic tone he gets when he was being drunkenly honest and embarrassed, "What if I deducted the people I saved from before I went to the Pit? I mean, that makes a hell of a lot of people. At the start I thought, you know, the old kills shouldn't count because I'd have hunted anyway, so the past shouldn't matter now and I gotta start over. But like I said, I just... I can't go so fast and I'm gonna kill myself trying so damn hard. And then here comes this case... 4,000 people, Sam. One case, and my slate is wiped clean. My slate can be clean in less than 3 days. I can get this damn stain off of me in less than 3 days. I can fucking _sleep _in 3 days."

He finally lifted his head, and the desperate seeking of approval was crippling Sam, robbing him of words. Dean gulped at Sam's silence, and went on.

"My other concern is," Dean said, "Do dogs count too, you think?"

"...What?" Sam asked, stupidly.

"Dogs, man," Dean replied, as if it was so apparent, "Do they count? And when I lose people, do they add up to what I owe? I think I should add them up. I've been doing that. What do you think?"

"Dean..." Sam breathed, "You don't... you don't owe anybody anything."

"Don't you say that," Dean snapped, before continuing more patiently, "I gotta do this, Sam. 'Cos... 'cos there's gotta be something that wipes the slate clean. Otherwise... otherwise it's just... _on_ me.

"You know what I'm scared of?" he continued, "I popped outta the Pit and I'm still the same guy. Head-fucked but I'm not different. I still know the same shit, decide and think the same way, care about the same things. Hell didn't fuck me in the head and then toss me back out like a monster, some crazy bastard who doesn't know left from right anymore. I'm still me. You know what that means? I was me when I tortured all those souls. I still... I still got it inside me to feel that same... same anger, you know? I can still... can still do that shit, 'cos it's _on_ me..." his voice trailed off, and he was embarrassed again, scratching the back of his head.

"So Einstein," Dean finished, "Blow my mind, all right? I gotta do this. So is the math sound? 'Cos if I can save this damn town, I won't owe anybody anything anymore."

Sam didn't have an answer. He wanted Dean to feel he was saved _right this second_, wanted him to stop trying to make up for things that weren't his fault.

"You were in hell, Dean," he said quietly, "Everyone breaks, you were _supposed _to--"

"Never mind," Dean said dismissively, taking another unhealthy swig of whiskey from that bottle that seemed glued to his fingers now.

"Dean--"

"No," Dean snapped, "Just... just math me up an answer or shut up okay? You wanna _fix_ me right? You're gonna fucking fix me, Sammy? This is how. Is the fucking math sound?"

Sam didn't have an answer. He didn't want to indulge this madness, but the fact was that he was at the end of his rope in trying to find a way to help his brother. He _can't_ fix his brother. But saving this town... doing a job... _that _ he could always do. And if that could help Dean, then maybe Sam could find it in himself to jump on the crazy train too.

Dean turned away from Sam dismissively and turned back to his work, even started whistling below his breath in an effort to ignore the little brother who was looking at him thoughtfully.

"It's not polite to stare," Dean growled at him after a few moments.

"The math is fair," Sam said in a clipped tone, before turning away and settling in bed.

Dean soon 'whiskey-ed' himself to sleep – Sam could tell too, by the way his breathing changed. But this time it was Sam who stayed up all night, thinking about his damaged older brother and finding that he wanted to spare this town less for saving people and more for saving Dean.

**To be continued...**


	4. Count the Costs

**Author: Mirrordance**

**Title: Open, Shut**

**Summary:** A street prophet foresees a deadly goes to the only people who would believe him:the Winchesters and Bobby 's an open and shut case except the only solution is-how do you empty a town of four thousand people? Post-_Family Remains_.

**Hey guys!**

A few posts ago, I deluded myself into thinking (and consequently announcing) that posts would be weekly. I'm ending up doing it every few days, sheesh. I did say I get undisciplined when responses excite me :) Granted... I'm not hard to excite haha, in the sense that I don't really get a lot of reviews (I was advised that pacing my posts would help with that but I'm really just terrible at self-control; an unfinished fic just presses all my OCD buttons haha). This means I'm not sure if the fic is being read widely or if it's well-received, but nevertheless, I do hope that those of you who read _Open, Shut_ find it enjoyable :) Thank you for your time. Thanks _plus _hugs go to reviewers however, haha! Anyway, c&c's are as welcome as always, and without further ado: _Chapter 3: Count the Costs_. 'Til the next post!

" " "

**Open, Shut**

" " "

**3: Count the Costs**

" " "

Dean had a pretty long and considerable experience in pretending that he knew exactly what he was doing in front of people in the academe. All the act that came with the hunt was a given, sure, but when he was younger, the act was practiced and perfected first and foremost with adults involved in Sammy's education– his teachers, his counselors, his coaches, his school nurses, etc.

And so he strolled down the corridors of the school with a smart, confident step, walking alongside the people he had requested to see: Mr. Morrison who was the President of the school, and Mr. Almay who was a Professor in the Science department.

"We're a small town," Morrison said, "So it's not a big facility. Pre-school, elementary, high school and a small technical college, mostly devoted to studying the operations of our plant and others like it. Enrollment's been down across the board but then again, we're one of those skewed populations in a dying town. More old than young people out here, the demand for what we got to offer's gone down, plant hasn't been employing like she used to, and everyone's movin' out, unfortunately. You should have seen this place back in the day though."

"The old plant not going the way she used to?" Dean asked.

"Oh no, she's perfect," Almay argued, "Runnin' like a trooper. We're just getting eatin' up by the competition, 's all."

"Another company?" Dean asked.

"Nope," Almay said, "It's the damned free market, son. It's just capitalism."

"There's an economic philosopher who once said something like 'capitalism is an economic success and a sociological failure'," Dean said, remembering something Sam had mentioned at one time or other. He knew from experience that saying things like that appealed to academics he was trying to get information from, and more importantly when he needed to pick up post-grad chicks from a bar.

Morrison's eyes lit up, "An interesting concept. You wouldn't recall--"

"No," Dean said quickly, before he could be grilled further. He added in a slight tone of condemnation to ensure that they skipped the topic all the sooner, "And anyway this is neither the time nor the place."

"Of course, officer," Morrison said at once, "I apologize I do get carried away by such things..."

"As I mentioned," Dean said, "Me and my esteemed colleagues at the Department of Homeland Security are randomly checking the emergency-preparedness of towns across America." He raised his hand up as if to calm his audience, "Not that we have received any terrorist threats to your home, but you know, what with the nature of terrorism and all."

"It could be at anytime and anywhere," Almay said with a nod, "By virtually anyone. It's about fear, and symbolism. Terrorists hitting a small place like ours... it's like saying no one is safe anywhere."

"Yeah, exactly," Dean said with a magnanimous wave, "Right on the nail, doc."

"Well we appreciate your precision," Morrison said, "And are very relieved that someone's paying attention to our little town. You can expect our complete cooperation."

"Exactly what I was counting on," Dean grinned.

"What do you need from me, officer?" Almay asked.

"I want you to explain to me how big any potential plant disaster could be," Dean said, "Spell the worst kind of destruction to me, in the largest possible radius."

"And from my office?" Morrison asked.

"I want to see an evacuation drill," Dean said, "You have that in place, right? You're supposed to."

"Of course!"

"And I want a rundown on how many buses and drivers you got," Dean replied, "How many teachers and nurses, everyone on staff. I also want the number of students per level. And I want you to explain to me what kind of alert system you have to contact parents in an emergency."

" " "

_Numbers_, Sam thought, miserably. He was starting to feel very sick of them as he flipped through ledgers and contracts and employee information.

_I can drown in all this paper_, he thought, _And no one's gonna find me for days._

He had come from the local library, the municipal records, company records, anything at all in town that held record-this and record-that, gaining unlimited access by virtue of the town people's helpfulness, the use of his shiny new Department of Homeland Security ID, and the _ab_use of his standard earnest-look. He had sifted through everything and brought copies back of what he felt were necessary, or required further reading. He was starting to get cross-eyed and hungry and impatient. He rubbed at his face wearily.

Numbers swam before his eyes.

Dean had called him the genius of the family just the night before, hadn't he? But sometimes, _sometimes_ Sam really wondered about what-might-have-beens. While Dean was hardly a fan of mathematics, he understood that he needed it in life and so, as he did in hunting, excelled in it also. While Sam was great with the humanities: literature and history when they were younger and eventually philosophy and the law, it was the practical and the physical that Dean had an aptitude for: the sure and quantifiable sciences like math and physics and chemistry. They both equally sucked at art. Either way... if Sam had less of a sense of self-preservation, he would have been calling his older brother geek-boy instead of letting it happen the other way around.

It was Dean who had taught him his homework, and it was Dean who hunted at night and went to tests the next day, passing with nothing more than whatever he remembered. Sam had marveled as a kid about the grasp Dean had for the sciences, the quick, instinctive logic.

And so his mind drifted past the ledgers to the conversation of the night before, Dean's current mathematical fixation. Sam had decided to call it quantifiable retribution, this decision of Dean to pursue a numerical approach to salvation and penance. It was... mildly deluded, to be generous. But maybe there was something in Sam that hoped it was true too; maybe if they solved this problem, Dean would go back to who he was, before he--

A steaming cup of coffee drifted into his line of vision, so close to his nose it was blurry. He jumped and found his brother looking at him suspiciously.

"Losing your touch there, Sammy?"

"I was distracted," Sam said, accepting the offering, "Thanks. I really needed this."

"You should've slept more last night," Dean said with a shrug, "Sorry I woke you."

"About that--"

"I don't even remember much," Dean said. He chuckled, but his eyes were begging Sam to just drop it, "That whiskey was good. For a poor guy, Reade has a very respectable stash."

_We'll discuss this later_, Sam promised his brother with a pointed look,_ like, when we're not on the brink of a major disaster_.

"So how do you like this town, huh?" Dean asked as he sat on the floor across from Sam and all his papers, "Everyone knows everybody. The coffee's free. The diner people are all like, 'Free stuff for the Department of Homeland Security guys.' They're all kinda giddy about the attention."

"I can imagine it gets lonely here," Sam conceded, "And as if this town wasn't dying already, now they have something like this about to happen to them."

The brothers raised their heads at a new arrival, and their brows rose at the sight of Paul Reade, looking neat and almost dapper in a pair of clean slacks and a polo.

"What?" he asked.

"Not up to looking like a nutjob preaching the end of the world at the supermarket today?" Dean asked.

Reade just shrugged, "Well I got you bastards on my back now, so... why bother." He sat with them, and Sam and Dean looked at each other in wonder, not quite used to the casual intrusion.

"There's something you boys aren't asking me," Reade said.

"How we're going to die?" Sam clarified, "Well, we won't be asking 'cos we won't be sticking around that long, so why bother? Like we said, we do what we can, and then we leave town before the night of the full moon." He looked at his brother pointedly.

"You know what I'm afraid of?" Reade asked, "What if we can't change the future? What if us tinkering around town is what causes the thing to blow up? Or what if we move everyone out and they're supposed to die anyway, so they die on the road from something else? This applies to you boys too, you know."

"You changed your future," Dean pointed out, "You saw your wife trying to kill you, and you escaped it. The future _can_ be changed."

"I didn't see myself dying," Reade pointed out, "I saw her trying to kill me. Even after my visions saved me from her first attempt, it didn't stop her from trying again. I barely got out of that one. She didn't stop trying. Maybe death's the same. What if it's all... you know, destiny?"

"I don't believe in that crap," Dean said, "You do what you can while you can, and deal with what's in front of you. We can't not try, man. 'Sides, if you believe in that destiny shit, then maybe you're destined to know about this and stop it, right?"

"Yeah," Reade said, scratching the back of his neck, "But you know... in the interest of... of information being power and all, I think I should tell you how you both croak in this mess."

Dean quirked a brow at Sam, as if asking if he was okay with this. Sam just nodded jerkily. There would be few things worse than watching a brother bring dragged to hell screaming, body torn and spirit wrenched after all, right? He could handle this...

"You weren't together," Reade said, and this was a weird surprise to the brothers. He nods to Sam, "You went first."

Dean's jaws tightened, and Sam reflected in macabre humor that maybe he should have checked with Dean if _he_ was okay with hearing this.

"Yeah?" Dean asked, inexplicably irate at Reade who looked injured by the indignant, disbelieving tone. Sam didn't know how he could sum up that it was because Dean had taken insult to the idea that he wouldn't be able to protect Sam, because in Dean's eye, Sam was only allowed to die if Dean had died first in failing to protect him.

"Rocks and wood and soil and dirt raining," Reade said, "I think you get buried alive. The only thing I could see after that was your hand. It was bloodied and grimy, and it jerks like, twice, thrice, something like that. Then it just stops."

"Maybe you didn't see me pulling him out two seconds later," Dean muttered.

"Oh you weren't there," Reade said, "In my vision, I saw you and man, you did not look good either," Reade tapped beneath his Adam's apple, "Cut open here. Black stuff from your mouth."

Sam's heart sped up. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, given that both Winchesters had already died in each other's arms at least once, and each time the story was continued brutally with the remaining man coming out a little bit bent and broken, screwed in the head, going out on murderous rampages or making stupid demon deals.

Dean caught Sam's mildly panicked look, not realizing he had mirrored a similar unease earlier, "Great, man. Thanks. That was awesome. Now we know, so let's just drop this."

"Anyway like we said," Sam gulped at the thought of Dean's throat cut open and black things coming from his mouth-- "That won't happen. That won't happen 'cos we won't be here."

" " "

Bobby and Wei returned a few minutes later, a little over the end of the business day. The small group had a more than decent spread for dinner this time, since Reade was taking his 'job' very seriously; there was chicken and potatoes and a homemade gravy that Dean would be dreaming about on lonely nights.

"Where'd you get the money, man?" Dean asked, "You know, we at the Department of Homeland Security have to be finicky about the company we keep, can't be hanging around you if you've been snatching purses."

Bobby just snorted at him.

"I got savings snuck here and there," Reade shrugged, "No big deal."

"Well, you shouldn't be wastin' what little you got left on us," Dean said as he ate heartily, "We're kind of indiscriminate, most of the time."

Reade just smiled at him slightly, "So what have you guys found out? Can we stop this thing?"

"The easiest thing to check was the money trail," Sam said, "And from what I can see, no one can profit off of this business burning to the ground. They have the same insurance policy they've had the last four decades. There have been no changes in the boards of the company that could point to them going a different direction, no major changes in structure or finances. There are no competitors who might be sabotaging them; they've had a virtual monopoly in this place and in surrounding towns until cheaper imports started coming in."

"It's dying a natural death," Dean agreed, "The people I've been talking to are saying the same thing: small-town America against Capitalism and all that. You know, the Man always gets you down."

"Okay so are we officially dunking the 'plant-destruction by deliberate intent' theory?" Wei asked.

"Profit-oriented deliberate intent," Sam clarified, "I looked through disgruntled employees for anyone who's pissed enough to do this intentionally, and there's none either. Everyone working there knows everybody else, and many have been employed for over a decade."

"Union issues?" Bobby asked.

"None," Sam said.

"Any lay-offs planned because the business is slowly going bust?" Dean asked.

"No rightsizing plans either," Sam said.

"It's downsizing and everyone knows it," Dean snorted, "Okay, so no one's pissed enough to do this. Is anyone stupid enough to blow this place up?"

"Seasoned players, man," Sam said, "Pretty much all of the employees have been there a long time. And the work hours are more than fair, so people are theoretically well-rested apart from being highly-experienced. New-hires are top of the line from the local college, and the mentor-system that HR has had in place for years ensures the rookies always have someone looking over their shoulders."

"Have you looked at medical records?" Wei asked, "Psych profiles and/or neurological disorders?"

"No one's crazy and no one's sick," Sam sighed, "And because the owners have an excellent relationship with their workers, they've got good medical coverage that requires regular, comprehensive testing."

"Clean as a whistle," Bobby breathed, "I'm not surprised. So's the plant itself."

"What do you mean?" Dean asked.

"Regular internal checks," Bobby said, "All properly and neatly documented, show nothing out of the ordinary. There's regular external checks from two government agencies – Mayor's office and some environmental group- that also came out clean."

"When was the last one?" Wei asked.

"They do the internal-thing weekly," Bobby said, "And the external thing every quarter. The last one of the latter was three days ago."

"Everything's right?" Dean asked, skeptically, "Well that's just _wrong_."

"Operations and maintenance are as clean as the people," Bobby concluded.

"But something has to go bad," Dean said, "I mean, if it's gonna explode, then there's gonna be some reason for it. If it's not one of our theories, then what the hell is it?"

"That's the scary part," Sam said, "If it's not the events caused by people's intent or stupidity, or a plant malfunction issue, then it's gonna be something we can't predict or prevent."

"Like nasty weather," Bobby elaborated with a flat frown, "A car ramming into it by accident, something random--"

"God Himself," Reade breathed.

Sam looked at Dean meaningfully, "Maybe it's time to call in some favors."

"Yeah right," Dean said sarcastically, "Sure. Lemme just get on the Cas-hotline, or light up the bat-signal."

"So how bad is this thing gonna get?" Wei asked, ignoring the in-joke he didn't understand.

"From what I was told by the local expert," Dean said, "There is enough juice in that plant to floor this town. It's flammable as hell. In terms of firepower and radius? Some big shit hitting the fan over at the plant and this town is gone. But that's the least of our problems. Fire you can eventually contain when it starts. Toxic chemicals hitting the air? Not so much. Which would have an effect on our evac plan."

"What do you mean?" Wei asked.

"Anywhere we're moving people," Dean said, "We gotta be upwind of this thing so that the toxic air doesn't follow them out. And we gotta make sure that the downwind towns from this one are warned. Either way, we do have to check the weather."

"So I guess at this point we have to focus on the evac plan," winced Wei, "'Cos more and more it looks like we can't stop this thing, especially if we don't have any other lead on what can cause this kind of explosion."

"Open and shut case, right?" Dean said wearily, "Now all we have to do is kick out 4,000 people. Great."

"At least it's simple," Sam said wryly. The brothers exchanged sour looks.

"Next pocket of civilization nearest here is a small city an hour's drive away," Wei said. "It's got two nice, big hospitals, a good-sized stadium and public spaces for medical treatment and temporary refuge. And they have a great working relationship with this town, especially from the medical people. Finn's Canyon sends folks up there all the time for complicated surgical procedures. If people can get there, they'll be well-taken care of."

"How to get them there's the problem," sighed Sam.

"Before anything else," Bobby said, "Are we sure that we really can't do anything to stop this?"

"Singer's right," Wei said, "I mean, are we all agreeing that there is nothing we can do at this point to prevent this? Because if that's the case, then we all have to start working on the evacuation plan and just totally scrap the prevention plans."

"Our theories are a bust," Dean enumerated, "And the only other possible causes for an explosion that we can think of, we can do nothing to stop. I think it's safe to say everything we're doing in terms of trying to prevent this thing from playing out is going nowhere."

"I agree," Sam said, "I think at this point we can agree that there's nothing we can do to stop this, and all we can do is get as many people out as fast as we can."

"I agree too," Reade said.

"Fine," Bobby said, "So we're emptying this town out. When?"

"Let's work backwards," Dean suggested, "We want them out by the time the sun sets on the day of the full moon, just to be sure. The sun is completely out in your vision, right?"

"Yes," replied Reade, "But there's no way to tell exactly what time it is."

"So Dean's right, we have to be conservative," Sam said, "No-sun is about as much exact time as we can get."

"Okay," Dean said, "So town empty by sundown. Most people would be home by then, especially the kids from school, so that's good. The school has evac drills but I'd rather not have any crazy parents rushing there to grab their kids, panicky things like that. Aside from the school thing, the other special places would be hospitals and hospices. I think we should empty out the sick and the old people first. They'll take longer, and if the timing gets too tight, they can't make a run for the hills."

"I want to supervise that," Wei offered, "If these immobile people aren't transferred properly, we can end up killing them."

"He's a doctor," Bobby explained.

"Was," Wei snapped, "Anyway, I got that area covered."

"The hospital here has three ambulances," Dean said, "The firehouse has one and the home for the elderly has one. The elderly home also has a large bus they use for field trips or something."

"The most delicate cases go on the ambulances," Wei said as Dean handed him the registry logs from the elderly home and the hospital, "I'll figure out the triage. But definitely we'd have to start evacuation earlier in these spots; it'll take longer, and we'll probably need to make several trips."

"I think it also makes sense to get everyone out of the public spaces and back home," Sam said, "It's going to be less of our problem if people took their own cars moving out of town. And then the majority of what we have to do would just be managing traffic: keep the cars moving, keep anyone from entering the town and convert all the roads one-way, outbound."

"Let's get the Mayor's office to call in a curfew," Dean suggested, "Shops, offices, parks, whatever, everything closed by a certain hour so that everyone's at home. And then by public info – TV, radio, some police guys hitting the streets, the school has a comm system we can take advantage of – we ask everyone to evacuate the town pronto."

"Why not just order the evacuation straight out instead of sending them home first?" Sam asked.

"No," Dean shook his head, "We need to get everyone home, man, so that we don't have a bunch of headless chickens running around looking for their kids or moms and dads and brothers or boyfriends and girlfriends. Put the people who are gonna end up looking for each other together first, and then move 'em out."

"Presumably they'd use their own cars," said Sam, "But we also need to get the Mayor's office to set up public transport stops for people who don't have their own."

"We'd need to make sure every single person is informed," Bobby started listing their tasks, "Aside from managing the traffic."

"We also need to have people going door to door making sure the entire place is empty," Dean pointed out, "So the way I see it, we got Wei here on special transfers, so that means you gotta handle the medical people. Bobby, you wanna handle the managing-traffic end of this and talk to the cops?"

"Got it," Bobby said, "And I think I know where you're going with this. Sam can handle buttering up the Mayor and making sure everyone's informed--"

"Sam's good at the computer shit," Dean explained to Wei and Reade, "Not to mention my brother has this lovely persistent alto that can tell everyone to get the hell out – without panicking them."

"And where will you be?" Sam asked.

"I'll be at the tail-end of this party," Dean said with a shrug, "Make sure the place is empty. Herd the lost sheep, haul-ass on the stubborn ones who don't want to leave, muscle out the looters who stay behind."

"That's the last-one-out post," Sam said flatly, arms crossing over his chest in undisguised disapproval.

"I can handle it," Dean said smoothly, "Listen, man. We all gotta do what we're best at: the doc's got the sick and the old. Bobby's got the cars and the cops – god knows the old man doesn't have trouble with the stripes like we do. You've got the techie shit and the ass-kissing of authority figures and me... well all the bullying-evil-torture-persistence I've recently picked up has to be good for something, right?"

"What are you yammering about?" Bobby asked him, brows furrowed.

"Nothing," Dean snapped, "Sam gets it. Right, Sam?"

The brothers stared at each other for a long moment.

"As long as we get out of here before the full moon," Sam finally said.

" " "

Dean was storing some supplies in the Impala parked on the rotunda of the house when he spotted Wei smoking a cigarette while sitting on the hood of his own car. The ex-doctor looked pensive when he glanced up at Dean.

"Hey," Dean greeted as he dumped some things in the backseat and shut the door.

"Winchester," Wei nodded at him in acknowledgment. Dean was just going to walk away but damn it, he'd been traveling around _Samantha_ long enough to pick up some sensitivities too; god knew the kid carried it around like a damn virus. Wei looked troubled, and Dean found himself muttering in irritation but helplessly walking toward him.

"You smoke?" Wei offered him an open pack of lights.

"Nah, I'm good," Dean said, "Those things are bad for your lungs, doc."

Wei snorted at him, took an indulgent puff and released it in a long exhale. "I've been looking at the hospital records."

"Yeah?"

"I told you I used to be a doctor," Wei shared, "I didn't tell you I was damn good."

"I can tell by the car," Dean said.

"I'm guessing that's where you got the 'Mid-life crisis' thing?" Wei asked.

Dean just shrugged, "I mean it's nice and all, but yeah. It was either that, or were you like, a plastic surgeon or something?"

"Ha," Wei chuckled humorlessly, "You're all right, Winchester. I'm... surprised."

"Whadja mean?"

"Everyone had a start, right?" Wei said, "Everyone had to start somewhere, with this hunting shit. I heard about your family early on when I started. Your old man was dead by then but man, he was a legend. I mean which other crazy bastard ever dragged his two kids around hunting, right? Who hasn't heard of Winchester and his boys."

"I didn't know that."

Wei shrugged, "John and his kids were the best, they said. Crazy old man Winchester. You know... there are very few hunters who can ever be as good as you. 'Cos he started you out so damn early, and you managed to live through it."

Dean's jaws tightened, "Where are you headed with this?"

"I'm sorry I was such a dick when we met," Wei said, "I don't know where I'm headed with this either. I..." he took a desperate whiff off his cigarette, "I started hunting a little over a year ago, after my wife died. I didn't know what it was at the time, but something, some presence, just came over me. I couldn't control what I was doing. I ended up... ended up killing her. It was my hands on her neck, and it was my face she saw when the life left her eyes. I didn't understand it back then, couldn't. Black smoke came out of my mouth, and then I was me again, and I was holding her and she was dead."

"Jesus, man..."

"Not a lot he had to do with it," Wei scoffed, "Demonic possession, I learned later. But it was me, scared as shit, getting rid of the body. She's still 'missing.'"

Dean closed his eyes, imagining the horror easily.

"I wanted to find out what had happened to me," Wei said, "I ran into Bobby Singer or maybe he was the one who found me, I don't know. I first heard about your daddy from him. Widowers, you know. Wives shouldn't have to die before their husbands. Widowers go around town like a bunch of amputees, not knowing where this shirt is, how to fix the toilet, which hole the detergent and the softener goes in, what my damn allergies are."

"If Bobby trusts you, you're not bad for a guy who just started," Dean commented on his hunting skills, unsure how to speak about the other things.

"You got enough money and you can get good at something real quick," Wei said, "If you're pissed as hell, you can get good even quicker." He lit up another cigarette, "I heard about your family more and more on the road. I eventually heard some things about what you and your brother may have had to do with opening the Devil's Gate that released the demon that possessed me, that ended with my wife dead and me... here."

"We tried to--"

"I know," Wei cut him off, "You failed."

"Look, man," Dean began, "I can't apolog--"

"I don't want you to," Wei assured him, "I was a dick when we met, I said, and I'm sorry. I called you a wuss, and that when it gets too hot in the kitchen, Winchesters bolt. But I've figured out that you're not made like that. You've been at this a long time, longer than most hunters. You're still _here_, even with a death sentence on your head. What I'm saying is... I understand that you can't always win, even if you try your damndest. You just do what you can. You can't save everyone. Like back at the Devil's Gate, when the demon that killed my wife escaped. And like... like now.

"We're gonna end up killing some of these people," Wei concluded, "I looked at the charts. There are some terminal cases that shouldn't even be moved, some really sick people, some badly injured people. We move them cavalierly out like we plan, and we'll kill some of 'em. We probably can't get everyone out of this town, that's just the way it is. But knowing doesn't make it any easier, does it?"

Dean pressed his lips together. "What are you saying?"

"There's five of us, Winchester," Wei pointed out, "Five of us in a buttcrack town. We need more than just us. But how are we gonna sell it to FEMA, huh? How are we gonna sell it to the National Guard? 'There's this drunken supermarket street prophet who's mostly credible and he dreamed of the end of the world?' We're all we've got. And we've got too little."

Dean bit his lip in thought. "I can get the pros down here and they can get everyone out."

"Riiight..."

"I can," Dean insisted, lowering his voice as if Sam could already hear him, "I can. But you gotta promise me something."

"Oh by all means," Wei said sarcastically, "The sun and the moon to you, Winchester, if you can do that."

"Get Sam out of here," Dean said vehemently, "Alive. Knock him over the head if you have to. Don't involve Bobby 'til he's got no other move but forward and with us, because I can promise you he'll nip this at the bud. Get everyone out of here and especially Sam, and I'll bring the pros in so they can empty this place out."

" " "

He woke up early the next morning, showered, dressed. He volunteered to buy everyone breakfast.

He left his car in the driveway, and her keys in the custody of a man he barely knew. He called for a cab and got off at the Mayor's office.

He didn't bother with the fed-suits he usually favored during an act, not this time. He strolled past the sputtering secretary to the Mayor's office, and stood right in front of Mayor Keys.

"Can I help you?" the woman asked him warily. She was a small-town Mayor on her second term, and it was a position her father and grandfather also once held. She was unused to hostility and danger, and her first stance was to listen to what he had to say.

"I've been going around town on this," he told her, tossing his makeshift Department of Homeland Security ID, "Check it out, it's a fake. M' real name's Dean Winchester. Call in the feds and check. I'm wanted for a bunch of things you never wanna hear of, and I've escaped prison more than anyone has the right to."

"Why are you--"

"Tomorrow night," Dean declared, "I rigged a bomb to go off that has the juice to floor your happy little buttcrack town. But I can be... reasonable, if you gimme a few things."

" " "

An hour after Dean Winchester volunteered to get the team breakfast, Wei walked up to Sam and asked for help to get a few more documents and supplies from his car.

"Sure," Sam said, rising from the floor where he sat in front of his laptop. Bobby Singer was in the shower, and Paul Reade was absently leafing through some of the papers on the ground.

The two hunters walked to the rotunda, Sam leading the way. He frowned at the sight of the Impala parked there.

"Dean's back?" he asked, wondering if he had missed his brother coming back while he had taken his shower earlier.

"No, I don't think so," Wei replied as he walked to his car.

"He's gotta be around here," Sam said as he looked around, "He wouldn't leave the car, there's no store you can walk to—"

His senses pricked a little too late.

He turned to face Wei, barely saw the rifle in the other man's hand before a hot flash of pain exploded from the side of his head and whited out his vision, before everything melted into thick blackness.

" " "

"We gotta get the hell out of here."

Bobby's head shot up as Wei entered the living room but left the double doors to the house wide open behind him.

"What are you yapping about?" Bobby asked, looking beyond Wei, "I thought Sam was with you?"

Wei tossed him the keys to the Impala, "Sam's busy. Pack up, now."

Bobby was hunter enough to know that sometimes explanations should come after action. But he was always just a little bit more unreasonable anytime the situation involved the Winchesters.

"Dean's not back yet," he pointed out, grabbing for his cellphone, fingers knowing exactly which buttons to press to get Dean on the phone, "And Sam--"

The combination of a discreet ring and a phone on vibrate hummed in the room. Dean's phone was in the folds of the neatly-folded sleeping bag he left behind.

"What the hell--" Bobby muttered.

"Dean ain't coming back," Wei said as he started gathering their things, "And Sam's unconscious on the passenger seat of his brother's car. We have to go."

Bobby stalked toward him threateningly, "You just said the two things that will keep me from listening to anything else you might have to say--"

Wei met the older hunter's rage-darkened eyes evenly, "Your boy just took matters into his own hands and asked me to knock his younger brother over the head and drag his ass out of danger. Sound like him?"

Bobby frowned. Hell yeah, but he needed more information than this.

"I'll talk," Wei sighed as his busy hands continued to prepare for departure, "But for god's sake, pack while listening, all right?"

"This better be good," Bobby snapped, making Paul Reade burst into action himself.

"Dean's at the Mayor's office," Wei said, "He's claiming he rigged the town with bombs. The Mayor should call in whoever she has to, to empty this place out. Dean told me to get you and Reade and Sam out and he'll take care of bringing in the pro's."

"But we were going to--" Bobby sputtered.

"I was looking at the patient stats last night," Wei winced, "I told him people were going to get killed in transit one way or another, because this is by no stretch of the imagination a five-man job. We needed to bring out the big guns, otherwise the really sick and the really hurt might as well just be left to die here if they're dying on the road anyway. He said he'd take care of it.

"This town knows who Dean was working with," Wei continued, "Small place, everyone knows everyone? If he comes up there claiming to be a terrorist with knowledge about a bomb that can tear this place to the ground, they are going to be hunting us down too, and all of us behind bars is not gonna help anybody. 'Sides, I promised the crazy bastard that I'd get his brother out if he did his end. So now we gotta _go_."

**To be continued...**


	5. Countdown

**Author: Mirrordance**

**Title: Open, Shut**

**Summary:** A street prophet foresees a deadly goes to the only people who would believe him:the Winchesters and Bobby 's an open and shut case except the only solution is-how do you empty a town of four thousand people? Post-_Family Remains_.

**Hey guys!**

Thank you so much for the generous reviews (more expansive commentary on your commentary later; I thought you might appreciate the quick post more at this point, haha), and thanks as well to those who took the time to read/alert/favorite _Open, Shut_. Here's another chapter for all you guys, and I hope I keep you engaged all the way until we reach the end of this 7-part story. As always, c&c's are very much welcome, I hope you get excited enough to join me until the next post, and without further ado, _Chapter 4: Countdown_!

" " "

**Open, Shut**

" " "

**4: Countdown**

" " "

A scant few minutes after a photo of Dean Winchester, taken alongside that day's newspaper, was faxed to the feds, they promised the Mayor of Finn's Canyon an investigative team and a bomb squad within the next half hour. FEMA had also been called in as well as the National Guard on standby for evacuation, pending what the FBI found out.

Dean gleefully listened in on the phone conversations of Mayor Keys from his hard-backed seat in the office. He was untied but being stalwartly guarded by the aging secretary and her pepper-spray, by the ancient vice-Mayor and his cane, and the two skinny female college-age assistants of the politicians. They were relieved by the arrival of the town's chief of police - a gruff man by the name of Rosetti - and two other cops, Garcia and his younger partner, Jennings.

"Do not ask him questions, just make sure he doesn't do anything," Keys commanded the uniformed officers, "The feds want first crack at him, don't want the interrogation all-muddled by too many damn cooks in the pot."

"All right by me," Rosetti said, though he looked mildly annoyed by having federal agents going over his head on a local case, "But wouldn't they want us to make sure he's not just some whackjob talking crap?"

"He gave us very specific information on the operations of our plant," the Mayor said tersely, "Our emergency practices, how large a disaster could be. He gave us hospital patients' names, names of students, names of our children. Mr. Winchester is at the very least a credible threat in terms of the information that he has and is therefore capable of using against us. That is aside from the fact that even if he did nothing in this town but stayed still and breathed, he was wanted for unimaginable crimes until he was presumed dead. Frankly speaking, I hope to god he's insane and spurting lies, and that there is no truth to this bomb destroying our town. _Pray_ he's lying, Rosetti."

" " "

The Impala sped out of town, trailed by a ridiculous matte pink monstrosity and a shameless dark gray Viper, just as the sound of a helicopter whirred over their heads and headed inward, the first of many to come. Within hours, the town would be overrun by even more new entrants; trucks, humvees, buses, people in long, disciplined lines.

Dean had promised them the pro's, after all.

" " "

"I'm going to tear him apart," were the first words from Sam's mouth when he woke on the passenger seat of the rumbling Impala.

"Easy," Bobby said, laying a calming hand over the other hunter's chest, "You know where you are?"

"I'd know the feel of this car in my dreams," Sam grunted as he winced and straightened.

"You know why you're here?"

"Bastard Wei got conned into something by my stupid brother," Sam said darkly, "That's all I can guess."

"How'd you figure that?" Bobby asked.

"Dean never would have left the car," Sam replied, "Unless he's up to something big."

Bobby set his jaws and nodded.

"Turn this thing around and start talking," Sam commanded.

"I can't do that, Sam," Bobby said, "Dean figured that the five of us weren't gonna be able to do this evac job on our own. Idjit walked into the Mayor's office, claimed he rigged a bomb to go off. The big boys are headed to town now to empty her out."

Sam growled and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Heard on the radio that they're holding him in a cell downtown," Bobby said, "Feds are on their way to grill him, bomb squads are on their way to search the city, the National Guard and FEMA's on board to empty the place, and we got cops looking for us as accomplices. We can't go back."

"So, what?" Sam snapped, "We're just supposed to leave him there? Problem solved, town emptied, too bad about Dean?"

"You know we won't do that," Bobby snapped back, "You know I won't, all right?"

"You were willing to salt and burn him once before," Sam said, under his breath, "Write him off for dead and gone."

Bobby's eyes narrowed in simmering anger that he kept in check. There were scars here, and he knew better than to bite. He let the silence run, and it was Sam himself who closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"I didn't mean that," Sam said quietly, "You've always had our back, Bobby and I'm s-"

"This caught me unawares too," Bobby told him calmly, glossing over the unprovoked attack, "We won't be far. We just need a spot, Sam, somewhere we can figure out what to do next. We're no good to anyone in this town – or to Dean – behind bars alongside him."

"We'll figure this out," Sam said with a gulp, "We have the whole of today and 'til sundown tomorrow before this town is wiped off the map. We'll figure this out."

" " "

Paul Reade drove Bobby Singer's car and led them to an old property, an abandoned hunting cabin standing on top of a small mountain just off a dirt road near the town's boundaries. It was in deplorable, near-decaying condition, long-emptied. But it overlooked Finn's Canyon, the view making it the perfect spot for the hunters to deliberate their options.

"Used to go up here on the weekend," Reade said as he opened the door, kicking up a cloud of dust. Sam was surprised the scarred wood didn't come off in his hand, "Wife number two said the view made her feel like a queen. She had grand ideas, that one. Too bad about the attempted-murder thing."

Sam went straight for the cracked, floor-to-ceiling glass windows that lined an entire side of the living room. They could see the town from here perfectly, could see the church spires and the few low buildings, the large pesticide plant dwarfing everything around it.

The roads were filled with cars and buses, people just moving out of Finn's Canyon in a steady, organized stream.

"Local news says the Mayor advised people of the situation in case they wanted to leave," Wei said, cautiously standing next to Sam. "Obviously a lot of people are headed out, but a good number are staying until the Mayor makes the evacuation mandatory. She won't do anything that decisive until the bomb squad declares something official. The feds should be sitting with your brother soon."

"They're holding him in a cell downtown, you said?" Sam asked.

"What are you thinking, Sam?" Bobby asked.

"The way I see it," Sam replied, "We're done here. The people in this town are going to get out. I just have to focus on getting my brother back."

" " "

They kept him in the deepest recesses of the police station; a small, gray cell in the basement, ill-used and drab as hell. It had a small window near the ceiling, about as wide as a buttcrack, but at least it let in some of the late afternoon sunlight. A federal agent was looking in on him, and if Sam were here, it would've been like that demon-town ambush not too long ago...

That was a shitty time, Dean reflected, knowing that somehow, this current situation was much better. At least he wasn't dealing with demons. At least the people of this town were safe. At least Sam wasn't here...

He remembered all too easily, that feeling of deep and profound helplessness. _Hopelessness_... Sam next to him, the two of them about to go to jail and him still slated to go to hell not too long after that. And then hours later, the two of them like sitting ducks waiting for a demonic ambush. He made jokes because that was all he had left of his arsenal to protect his younger brother.

"I knew Victor," the FBI agent told him. He had been introduced to Dean earlier as Van Gerbaud or some such thing.

_So did I_, Dean thought, with one more damn pang of guilt in his already-plagued heart. The late FBI man had been a goddamn thorn in his side almost all the way up to the moment he died, but Henriksen was a good cop and turned out to be a pretty decent guy. He was focused, dedicated and incorruptible. They both fought evil to the death, except from different ends that could not help but collide. But he was a good ally in the end.

"He died making your arrest," Van Gerbaud said, "He was a good man, and he was like a mentor to me."

Dean's brow just quirked as his mind debated on whether or not he should bait the bastard. It would've been like second nature to him, but Henriksen was as sore a topic as it could possibly get, and he wasn't in the mood to talk more about the dead agent whose death was on his conscience.

"Up to now," Van Gerbaud went on with a glint in his eye, "No one knows what to make of that gas explosion. Accidents happen, whatever. But I'm looking at you and you're looking damn-fucking good for a twice-dead man. What did you do, huh? Killed everyone there, blew the place up to cover your tracks?"

"You would think that," Dean said, rubbing at his eyes tiredly, "But you don't know what you're talking about."

"I know you're a murderer," Van Gerbaud declared, "I know my friend is dead. I know you must have had something to do with it."

"Shouldn't we be talking about something else?" Dean asked tersely, "Like where I put the bomb that's gonna floor this town, for one."

"I should be asking you the same thing," Van Gerbaud pointed out, "For a man threatening to blow this place to kingdom come, you aren't making any demands, aren't complaining about your treatment, aren't... doing much of anything, really."

"You want me to ask for things?" Dean sneered.

"I want to understand you," Van Gerbaud answered, "I want you to fall into a comprehensible pattern, to be moved by incentives. No one ever could get you boys, back at the bureau. Why the hell would you do that, why the hell would you go there, why the hell do we get calls from earnest, normal people left and right saying we're wrong and that you're a nice guy?"

Dean's brows rose, "You get calls like that? So I'm kinda like Dillinger? Or Robin Hood?"

"Or Manson?" Van Gerbaud countered, "And how the hell can you escape from everything that's supposed to have killed you? They had a damned body with your face on it, that first time."

Dean just shrugged, "Sometimes I ask myself the same thing."

"What do you want, Winchester?" Van Gerbaud asked, "What the hell do you want, and where the hell is that goddamn bomb?"

"You have a dirty mouth," Dean pointed out before asking, "You emptying out this town?"

"You know we are."

"Good," Dean said, "No need for anyone to get hurt. 'Cos the shit is coming down."

"What are you planning?" Van Gerbaud asked.

"This place blows tomorrow night," Dean said, "Make sure you get your men out too."

"We'll find that bomb," Van Gerbaud guaranteed him, "Or I'll beat you to half your life and find out myself."

"You can try," Dean laughed, humorlessly. It was amazing how far an empty threat could go. Those bomb squad boys could go on looking forever, "You won't find it, and I can't tell you where it is. Just make sure you and your boys get out."

"Who are you working with?" Van Gerbaud asked, "Is that what you're saying? That you don't know where it is? That someone else does because you've split the work--"

"Anyone ever tell you that feds overthink things?" Dean asked, "Like I'm in some well-organized terrorist splinter cell or something. Ever thought that maybe I'm just off my rocker and wanna break things?"

"I don't know what to think about you," Van Gerbaud admitted.

"Well lemme make one thing clear," Dean said, "You want to know what I want. I want this town empty – including you and your men."

"Which includes getting you out too, right?" Van Gerbaud said as he turned to walk away, "Tell you what, tough guy. Why don't you sweat it out here a little bit. Think about that bomb going off while you're still here. Maybe that'll inspire you to tell me where it is. Because I can promise you right now – the only time I'll get you out of here is when you start talking. If not, then that bomb can blow, and you along with it."

" " "

The Impala's radio was blasting out local news from where they parked her outside the dilapidated cabin. It was one of the hunters' few sources of information, apart from looking over the view with high-powered telescopes, and a rigged truck radio that picked up the frequency of local law enforcement.

"They're keeping him at the police station," Wei said after listening in, "They think he'll be more pressured to tell them where the bomb is if they keep him in the place where he himself is in danger."

"He's guarded by cops and feds," Reade blanched, "How are you planning on going through all that?"

"Assuming we can even get back into town," Bobby said, "They're not allowing non-official vehicles inside. We can fake the credentials, but there's a checkpoint and they're probably on the look-out for us."

Sam stared out the glass windows. The moon hung in the clear skies, almost full. The sun had set almost an hour before, and they officially had 24 hours before the plant explosion that would floor the town to nothingness. Finn's Canyon was almost empty since most people had left on their own, but there still remained a few stubborn residents, the Mayor's office, the cops, the feds, and the emergency workers.

"Why couldn't he have just called in the threat?" Sam muttered to himself in frustration.

"A phone threat wouldn't have given the situation the same magnitude," Bobby told him quietly. "One of the reasons why these guys are acting the way they are, is because your brother is... who they think he is."

"Dean Winchester," Sam seethed at the injustice, "The damned felon."

"Sam--"

"I know," the younger hunter sighed, "Not the time, not the place. Things are just... so unfair sometimes, that it just..." his words died down. All hunters had their own story to tell, but sometimes he felt that the Winchesters were carrying more than their fair share of heartbreak. He thought about the mother he never knew, the father he didn't understand, the brother he couldn't protect.

_I have to be here_, Dean had said.

_There's gotta be something that wipes the slate clean_, Dean had gone on, _Otherwise... otherwise it's just on me..._

_3,650..._ Sam thought spitefully, _3-fucking-6-goddamn-50... _

So now that they'd saved most of the 4,000 idiots from Finn's Canyon, did that mean everything's settled? That they're fine? That things would go back to the way they were? He should have killed this delusion right off the bat, except he wanted so badly to believe that something could fix Dean too.

_I'll give you a number_, Sam thought to his brother angrily, _One. I only got one brother. We both know what I became when you were gone. One. One. That's all that counts. I would have let this town burn if I could save you. All I need to save is you, and everything else I can fix or live with from there_.

_One._

"Trek in," Sam murmured thoughtfully, "At daylight, down the side of the mountain, and then sneak in on foot."

Reade's eyes widened, "Down the side of the fricking mountain where my house sits overlooking the city? That's a pretty damn high and long trek."

Sam shrugged, "I'm not unfamiliar with navigating in the outdoors."

"I am!" Reade said, "When I told you this was my hunting cabin, it's just a fancy term for a house on a mountain. I don't... hunt. Or trek. Or anything else that involves strenuous physical activity."

"I don't care," Sam snapped, "I'm going, and besides... you probably shouldn't anyway. I can't..." he hesitated, "I'm going back there on the very real threat of being arrested and jailed for life, not to mention I could die. I can't ask that from anybody else. It's my fight 'cos it's my idiot brother on the line."

"You know I'm already going, right?" Bobby asked, "You know nothing you say can change my mind, right?"

"I'm going too," Wei said.

"No one's--" Sam argued.

"No," Wei cut him off, "No, you won't do this alone. I have a feeling Winchesters will find this hard to figure out, but it's a bitter pill you have to swallow. Hunters help people. That's what we do. But sometimes, we're victims too."

"Victims," Sam said skeptically.

"Everyday we put our lives on the line for people we don't know," Wei said, "Some of them worth the sacrifice, many... not so much. On the other hand, my life for another hunter's... it doesn't get anymore worth it than that."

"Well...you don't get to go," Sam said to Reade tightly, not quite sure if he should say 'thank you' to Wei.

"Now that everyone's going," Reade actually pouted, "I want to."

"You're a civilian!" Sam pointed out, not liking the feeling of the situation spiraling out of his control, of how everyone was disregarding the things he was saying.

"As a matter of fact if anyone should stay back," Reade countered, "It should be you!"

"Reade..." Sam threatened.

"You know how Sam dies?" Reade looked to Bobby, "In my vision, he gets buried alive. Rocks and wood and soil and dirt raining down. You know what you find trekking down a mountain? Rocks and wood and soil and dirt. As sure as I am that Finn's Canyon is gonna burn, I am sure that if you go down the side of that mountain you'd have walked into your grave."

"Sam, he's right," Bobby said, "Maybe you should sit this one out."

"I'm not afraid of dying."

"Well you'd better be," Bobby snapped, "You Winchesters are a bunch of drama queens. The one thing you boys are afraid of is living alone; dying is nothing. But that's not courageous, Sam, it's your one selfishness. Well suck it up, kid, 'cos someone has to draw the line somewhere. You wanna save your brother? Then buck up your courage, stay here and _live_."

"I can't just--"

"You can," Bobby insisted, "You can, all right? Do you trust me?"

"I can't—"

"Sam!" Bobby barked, "We'll get him back, I promise."

"And what am I supposed to do?" Sam whispered, eyes searching.

"In your vision," Bobby asked Reade, "How does Dean die?"

"I just see his throat cut open," Reade replied shakily, "And black stuff coming from his mouth. That's all I know."

"Could be shrapnel from the blast finding his jugular," Bobby shook his head, "People did say you boys were cursed. Could also be poisoning from the toxins in the air... it could be a lot of things. Either way Sam, we need to get ready to take him in. Get whatever medical kits we have together, we're gonna need it. Reade, you stay with Sam and keep him clear of anything that remotely looks like what you saw in your dream." He turned to Wei, "As soon as we have any sort of daylight, we're headed out."

" " "

"Would it kill you to bring me a snack?" Dean said in the quiet emptiness of his basement prison cell. He smirked to himself, appreciating the private joke because... that was all he could do, really. He was on his back on the cot, counting cracks on the wall, which was the most exciting activity there until Van Gerbaud decided to come back again to grill him, or the plant exploded and knocked him out of his misery.

He drifted to sleep sometime during the eternal night, something he both dreaded and did not expect. He was so unprepared for it that he only knew he had fallen asleep when he jerked awake breathlessly, on the tail-end of a nightmare he did not want to remember.

"I was going to wake you," Van Gerbaud's voice broke the silence, from where he stood inside the prison cell just by the door, watching Dean, "But you seemed appropriately tortured in there."

Dean grimaced as he sat up, embarrassed.

"Henriksen had a theory about your childhood abuse and molestation," Van Gerbaud said, "Crying in your sleep, shouting 'no,' whimpering like a little girl... that sounds about right."

Dean stared at him for a long moment. They had bigger problems, but the slander of his father was always something that could rile him up.

"Well if you're whining like a bitch," Dean said with an acidic grin, "I guess this means you still haven't found my bomb. Maybe you should get the telescope out of your ass and look harder."

"You know I keep forgetting if the United States is a signatory in the CAT," Van Gerbaud stated.

Dean snorted, "When has that ever stopped anybody."

"So you may consider this a warning," Van Gerbaud said darkly, "There are very, very few places I won't go in order to do my job, Winchester. By the time I'm done with you, you won't just be telling me where you hid the damn thing, you'll be singing it to me."

"Maybe there's no bomb," Dean dared him, "And I'm here just because I get off on inconvenience."

"You haven't been inconvenienced yet," Van Gerbaud promised.

"Is starving me part of it?" Dean asked, "'Cos I haven't even eaten lunch yet."

" " "

He was a quivering mass of anxious energy, standing there and practically bouncing from a profound inability to stay still and calm down.

The cabin was gently lit, what with the sun not yet completely rearing her mighty head over the horizon. The poor lighting gave Sam a hallowed look, all shadows and fears.

"GetimbackBobby," he said, breath between words eliminated by anxiety. He sounded so much like a kid that Bobby almost could have slipped the 'uncle' in there that he hasn't heard in awhile.

Bobby was going to say a properly qualified 'I'll do my best,' but those things never worked with Winchesters. If he didn't make that promise, Sam would go after Dean himself.

"I'll get him back," Bobby said in a maybe-lie. He hoped it wasn't. He would move heaven and earth to make it true. He looked to wide-eyed Reade, "Keep him here. Knock him out if you have to."

"People keep saying that," Wei commented, remembering that Dean had said the same thing of his apparently bullheaded brother.

"You ready?" Bobby asked him.

"Right behind you, Singer."

" " "

They didn't talk much, going down the side of the mountain. It was steep, and though they had the foliage and gear to use as handholds, the activity required concentration. The two hunters expected a few hours on the trail before reaching the edge of town. They estimated they would reach the police station by early afternoon, which would give them enough time to bust Dean out and get the hell out of Finn's Canyon by stealing a car.

"It's a good thing, what you're doing," Bobby grunted as he moved around a tree, "Risking yourself for these boys. Job's done, you coulda just walked away."

"I hate this damn hunt," Wei swatted a thin branch away from his face spitefully, "It confuses things. This town supposedly dies a natural death, right? If anything, what we're doing is jarring the proper order of things by saving them."

"You learn something from every hunt," Bobby shrugged, "What we do is seldom in black and white, and we're lucky if we stumble into a job that's straightforward. This time around... well I'm sure you've figured that not everything supernatural is evil."

"I don't mind that," Wei said, "I just hate this feeling that we're all alone. We're trying to help people, right, and now here we are: busting someone like Dean Winchester out of jail."

"The brothers impressed you?" Bobby asked.

"I don't understand them, I guess," Wei said, "'Impressed' is too strong a word."

"Fair enough," Bobby chuckled, "I'd have used 'overwhelmed', 'confused', 'baffled', and the like. Sometimes I wonder how I keep getting into messes with this family."

"Technically," Wei pointed out, "You got them into this mess."

"Hm," Bobby winced, "You know what I mean."

"I heard all sorts of shit about their family here and there," Wei said, "Devil deals and angels, ridiculous things. Someone's dead and then they just turn up again. Some job no one would touch, they'd get into. Some job no one could do, they'd finish. Dancing with the feds, making friends with vampires... crazy shit. I bet you know what the real deal is."

Bobby just shrugged, "You wouldn't believe any of the real things, it's crazier than fiction. And I ain't telling anyway."

"I wasn't looking to be told," Wei clarified, "But that's neither here nor there. Like I said – hunters are victims sometimes too. Who'll guard the guardians, right?"

" " "

"How are we doing, Bobby?" Sam asked over the phone, hours later when the sun was high up in the sky, past high noon.

"As scheduled, Sam," replied the other hunter, "We're still in the wood, but that's not unexpected. We'll get to the station in a couple of hours. Heard anything on the news?"

"They're still grilling him there," Sam answered grimly, "And they're still chasing their tails looking for that bomb. The Mayor also just declared evacuation mandatory for the civilians in case they don't find it by the time it's set to explode tonight."

"Good," Bobby said, "Less and less to worry ab--"

It started with a sound, a low, humming grumble that came from the very belly of the earth. Or maybe it was God's rumbling laughter, because the situation was so ironic that maybe He had a sense of humor after all. The sound was followed by a tremble, and the tinkle of glass windows as they shook in response to a world that quaked.

"Aw, shit!" Reade exclaimed from beside Sam as the dilapidated cabin started to almost-rock around them. Left to right, the battered wooden structure swayed, dust raining over their heads.

"This place isn't going to hold," Sam said tightly, the back of his mind turning unhealthily toward the question of how many deaths could he possibly escape? He'd survived a fire, a car wreck, a stab wound, this damned everyday life, and maybe 'death by living burial' could come not only from rocks and soil and dust after all...

He gripped Reade by the shoulders and pushed him toward the door.

They ran as the house collapsed around them, dodged and jumped over fallen wood beams.

Sam watched Reade's back as he broke into the bright noon, bursting out the door.

It was so damn near that he almost tasted escape, felt the cool breeze of the outside world on his face. Breath rushed out of his body and it was the only part of him that escaped the wreckage when the first beam hit his back and sent him falling face-first to the floor.

"Sam!" Reade exclaimed, whipping around and eyes widening in profound horror as the house started to collapse all around the fallen hunter.

Sam couldn't help it; he knew it was useless, but he reached out for help.

_ The only thing I could see after that was your hand_, Reade had said of his vision of Sam's death, _It was bloodied and grimy, and it jerks like, twice, thrice, something like that_.

_ Then it just stops._

" " "

"Earthquake!" Wei bellowed, grabbing a branch to keep his footing as the world swayed.

"Ya think?" Bobby snapped, slipping his mobile back into his pocket. He had lost the signal with Sam, but he and Wei had bigger problems. The ground shook beneath them, making them scramble for a tighter foothold. The looser soil was crumbling beneath their feet, and as surely as their footing was insecure, it was certain that the land higher up the mountain, the area that they had passed through, was just as shaky.

Bobby looked down at his boots, sinking in the shaking soil, getting buried by the dirt as it slid down to where they were.

"What do we do?" Wei questioned, eyes wide.

"Well, we don't get to die," Bobby yelled out, gruffly, "There must be decent shelter here somewhere."

"What do we do, what do we do?" Wei repeated, alarmed, eyes roving around.

"We gotta do better than just standing here," Bobby replied, grabbing the other hunter's arm, "Come on!"

In their best running form, the two hunters went down the mountain, dodging trees, stumbling over loose soil and getting back up, jumping over rocks, ducking... it was like one of those old-school Japanese game shows that Dean and Sam liked watching when they were kids.

"Bobby!" Wei yelled, pulling the older hunter to a halt, "I think I see something!"

"What?" Singer asked, breathlessly.

Wei didn't bother answering, he just changed their trajectory and ran toward a jutting, rocky part of the mountain. He jumped off the cliff-like rock and landed in a squat about five feet down. He waved Bobby over, and the older hunter doing the same thing. Wei lifted Bobby to his feet and pulled him into the shade that the jutting rock provided.

They sheltered themselves in the cave-like structure as more rocks and soil rained down from above. It was hard to tell when the earthquake ended and when the landslide started; both shook the earth, the rumble from her heart drowning out any other sound and robbing the hunters of their thoughts. They watched as the world turned dark around them, soil and rock and wood blocking their only entrance.

" " "

"God himself," Dean echoed Paul Reade's words in a pensive murmur, as he looked up at the dimming ray of afternoon light seeping through his cell's pathetic excuse for a window. The world was shaking, and though his captors and guards have gone underneath desks and tables, in fact any shelter they could find, he just sat on his cot and wondered how he was going to get out of this one alive.

_So, freaky earthquake jars something loose in the plant_, Dean surmised. _There's probably gonna be some sort of gas leak – that's why the air smelled funny and the animals were getting out of the place even before the plant blew up in Reade's vision._

That meant he must still have a few hours before the explosion. That meant he still had a shot at saving himself and the feds who were still in town... Which was a grossly optimistic estimation of his situation, really, given that he was presently behind bars.

"Hey, Van Gerbaud!" Dean called out to the FBI agent who was cowering beneath a desk with another FBI officer, "How's the cuddling down there?"

"Shut up and get under something, Winchester!" Van Gerbaud snapped.

"Personally I like being on top," Dean snickered, "But I respect your choices."

"Shut up and--"

"Hey, listen," Dean said more earnestly, rising from his seat and holding at the cell bars, "Man, we gotta--"

"After the fucking earthquake you psycho!" yelled another FBI officer.

"Fair enough," Dean muttered, sighing. If they only knew this was the least of their problems...

When everything finally stilled, the agents were still beneath the desks, expecting some form of aftershock.

"Hey," Dean called to Van Gerbaud in the silence, "I gotta talk to you."

Van Gerbaud warily stepped out from under the desk and moved to stand in front of Dean.

"What are the odds of a terrorist bomber," Dean began, "And a shit-ass nasty earthquake, vying for attention in the middle-of-nowhere on the same day? Slim to none, right? Or this is one cursed fucking town?"

Van Gerbaud frowned, "What are you getting at?"

Dean smirked at him, "Did Henriksen ever tell you about my new age, occult, supernatural preoccupations?"

"What about them?"

"Would you believe me," Dean asked, "If I told you there's no bomb in Finn's Canyon? A street prophet told me this town's pesticide plant is about to blow and that the explosion would kill everyone in it if I didn't get them out."

Van Gerbaud snorted, "No, I wouldn't believe you."

"The thing about making believers out of people in my line of work," Dean said thoughtfully, "Is that sometimes you have to make them see things for themselves, and at that point it could be too late to do anything about it. When this plant blows with us both here, you won't even have the luxury of thinking you were wrong. And worse... I won't get the luxury of saying 'I told you so.'"

"Even if that happens," Van Gerbaud pointed out, "Maybe that's only because that's where you put the bomb."

"True," Dean conceded, "But you've checked that place, right? In and out?"

"It was the most viable target in town," Van Gerbaud shrugged, "Yes."

"And came up empty," Dean said.

"Maybe you hid it too well."

"For the feds?" Dean scoffed, "Little old me?"

Van Gerbaud stared at him for a long moment with narrowed eyes.

"There's something wrong with that plant," Dean guaranteed him, "We have to get out of here."

"You're staying here until you tell me--"

"Leave me the fuck behind if you have to," Dean snapped, "But for god's sake, get out. Or get your men out. Just... just get the hell out. By sunset, you have to be out of here."

"'Cos you're saving my life, right?" Van Gerbaud said dryly.

"This is going to be like, the second-biggest-I-told-you-so-ever," Dean muttered to himself before answering, "Yes. God knows why, but yeah, you can say that. The thing with visions is that they aren't very specific. The most that I know is that the explosion happens at night, so you want to clear out of here before sunset."

"Of course," Van Gerbaud said, mock-gravely.

"The earthquake probably jarred something at the plant," Dean ignored the commentary, "So I'm thinking the air should smell funky soon, probably some sort of leak. And then she'll blow shortly after. And the animals! Watch it when the animals start acting weird, like they wanna get out, like they know something is--"

"You really are out of your damn mind," Van Gerbaud marveled, "There's really no need for the act, Winchester. Your insanity-defense is pretty solid by now."

"You're gonna kill anyone who's left here," Dean snapped, "I know it sounds crazy, all right? I'm not a fucking idiot. But what would it hurt, huh? Leave me here, take me with you, whatever, just as long as you get your people out. What would it hurt?"

"So you're not an idiot," Van Gerbaud said flatly, "Then think about this one – I leave you here and you might get away."

"From behind bars?" Dean barked out a surprised, disarmed laugh, "You flatter me."

Van Gerbaud just shrugged, "We had a positively identified ID of your body years ago, Winchester. Someone gets away from death and you gotta pay closer attention. In short, I am not leaving you here."

"Then take me with you," Dean said simply.

"Bet you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Van Gerbaud said, "Take you away from the danger? Come now. I'm going to keep you here until you tell me where that bomb is, or we can all explode along with it."

**To be continued...**


	6. Count On Me

**Author: Mirrordance**

**Title: Open, Shut**

**Summary:** A street prophet foresees a deadly goes to the only people who would believe him:the Winchesters and Bobby 's an open and shut case except the only solution is-how do you empty a town of four thousand people? Post-_Family Remains_.

**Hey guys!**

Because it's a Friday, haha... here's one more chapter of _Open, Shut_. C&cs welcome as always, and 'til the next post!

" " "

**Open, Shut**

" " "

**5: Count on Me**

" " "

"Ohgodohgodohgodohgod..." Reade sob-muttered to himself as the world steadied around him and he ran back toward Sam. He reached for the hunter's still hand tentatively; he'd never touched a corpse before, and didn't plan on ever having a first time for that.

The hand was bruised, grimed and bloody, but it felt alive. He breathlessly pressed his fingers to the pulse point on Sam's wrist, and then jerked his hand away.

"Oh fuck!" he exclaimed, not quite sure if there was a pulse or not; feeling for one was not in his skill set either. He didn't think he'd ever need it, and when you're panicked and scared it wasn't very basic or instinctive _at all_.

"Sam!" he called out as he began to pull away varying sizes of wooden debris to free the hunter, "Sam! Can you hear me?"

The call was more for him than for Sam; he needed help, damn it. He needed the hunter to be fine, needed Sam to tell him what to do. But the longer he worked to free the buried man, the more bold he felt; his heart pumped strong and loud in his ears as he shoved away at everything and anything that was between Sam and himself. His fingers bled and his arms were sore, the dust irritated his throat and lungs, but he kept right on going.

"I'm getting you out!" he declared confidently as he unearthed an arm, and then a shoulder, "Just hang on, I'm getting you out!"

" " "

Wei drew out his cellular phone and let its glow light the tiny cave in which he and Singer were now, apparently, quite miserably stuck.

Bobby Singer _tsked_ at him and drew out a flashlight from the rucksack he'd brought with him. "You're supposed to be a hunter and you don't have one of these things?"

"I don't," Wei murmured as he shook his head, "But I was also checking for a signal. No such luck."

The two men surveyed the mess they had gotten into. Just as Wei suspected, _and hoped_, the jutting rock he had seen from above was the top of a naturally-formed cave-like structure that went about ten feet into the mountain. The roof was so low that neither he nor Singer could stand straight. The space was by no means comfortable or assuring but at any rate, it had provided them with shelter during the landslide. Now all they had to do was dig their way out.

"We gotta do it while the soil is still loose," Bobby said.

"Yeah," Wei grunted, crawling toward the blocked entrance. He clawed at the top of the soil blockage experimentally. The part he had removed was immediately replaced by more soil dropping in from above them.

"We're buried fairly deep," Bobby guessed, "But it can't be too bad."

"You think we can just..." Wei paused in thought, "Kind of push our way through?"

"We don't know how much higher the soil's piled on top," Bobby said, "We'll start out careful." He glanced at his watch. They had to get out of town with Dean before the sun sets.

"You know what," Bobby said gruffly as he dug desperately at the soil, "Screw that."

" " "

"Sam?" Reade called out hoarsely, voice suddenly feeling strained the moment he'd freed the hunter's head from the rubble. Sam's face was pale where it was not smeared with dust and grime, his eyes closed, his expression slack and lifeless.

"Sam," Reade shook him slightly, "Hey. I'm kinda shaky here, I can't tell if... if you're... not dead. Move, make a sound, something-anything..."

His plea was met by resolute silence. He tried his luck with feeling for a pulse again, this time against Sam's neck. There was a thud there that might have been just him and his own racing heart, so he pressed his ear near Sam's face, tried to feel for a breath.

"There you are," he grinned to himself as he felt air flutter against his skin. He felt renewed strength as he freed Sam from even more of the wreckage, throwing away pieces of wood and steel.

When the entirety of Sam's back was debris-free, Reade frowned to himself and contemplated if it would be wise to move him. Sam was lying on his stomach, right arm folded beneath his chest as if he had tried to catch himself when he fell, and the left one stretched out over his head, reaching for escape. His left shoulder looked busted. The back of his shirt was a tattered mess, covered in random red splotches and bloody at the collar from a hit to the back of his head. His left leg was stretched out and looked fine, though the right one was bent awkwardly. These apparent back and head injuries were enough to give him pause.

"Okay, okay," he wrung his shirt nervously. So the kid was alive, but as for how long... well, Reade would have to take it upon himself to be responsible for that. He tore at his clothes and pressed it against the gash at the back of Sam's head.

"Your hair's smooth," he rambled nervously, "Too bad... I think they'll have to get rid of some of that when they patch you up, unfortunately."

He bit his lip; he needed help, he knew that. He couldn't even feel for a pulse, much less handle major injuries on his own. But they were also running from the law, weren't they, what with Dean Winchester having exposed himself to the authorities. He felt for Sam's cell phone and found it in one of the unconscious hunter's pockets. It had survived the collapse of the house and Sam's weight, but the earthquake had robbed them of a workable signal.

"Shit," he muttered, mind racing. He was gonna flip out, his heart beating faster, _What the fuck now_?

He pressed against Sam's bleeding wound as he looked up at the darkening skies of late afternoon. It was getting a little bit chilly, and he felt Sam tremble beneath him a beat before he heard the hunter's low, pained moan.

"Sam!" he exclaimed, "Sam, wake up! I don't know what to do."

The moaning died, but not the trembling. If Reade had been panicked before, he was going ballistic now.

"Please don't die," he begged as he came to a decision. He ran to the Impala, where the sleeping gear had been piled into by him, Bobby and Wei before they broke out of town. He dragged out a blanket and laid it over Sam.

"I'm gonna get you some help," he declared, "To hell with the cops on your ass. The town's in chaos and lots of strangers are running around so maybe they won't even know to look for you specifically. Live first, and then we'll fix everything else later. I have a lot of good lawyers..."

He looked at the three cars parked by the collapsed cabin, none the worse for wear from the earthquake. He knew the respective keys were in them just in case anyone in the group needed to make a quick getaway. He looked regrettably at the gleaming Impala and the shameless Viper, and then ran to Singer's hybrid monstrosity instead. It was fast as hell and he had driven it already, so he jumped in behind the wheel and sped out of there toward the main road.

" " "

"Chief, the air smells kinda funny."

Dean glanced up at the cop who'd walked into the holding area where he was being kept and where Van Gerbaud, the chief of police Rosetti, Mayor Keys, and a few other cops and feds were questioning him.

Van Gerbaud and Dean exchanged a glance that the federal agent quickly looked away from.

"Funny, how?" Dean asked.

"Don't tell him a thing, Garcia," Van Gerbaud instructed.

"The air is gonna be bad," Dean said, "And then she blows, all right? I told you, you people should get outta here! You might still have time--"

"'Cos a street prophet said so, right?" Van Gerbaud snapped, "Well I'm not--"

"You know what, to hell with you," Dean snapped back, and he found he meant that from the very bottom of his _gutter soul_. He turned imploringly to the Mayor and the local cops, "You know this town inside out. You know how it's supposed to feel and smell. Get out there and if you tell me nothing's wrong, then we'll all stay put and I'll shut my mouth--"

"Winchester--" Van Gerbaud threatened.

Dean ignored him, "-- but if it feels wrong, get out. Just get out."

"The street prophet who saw all that," Garcia began tentatively, "You talking about Paul Reade?"

"Yeah it's Reade," Dean answered.

"Reade won the lottery twice," Garcia explained to Van Gerbaud, "From numbers he predicted. I'm not some nutjob, but there's always been weird things around that no one can explain, and maybe this is one of them."

"This is the kind of small-town thinking that marks the difference between the FBI and you yahoos," Van Gerbaud barked at the veteran officer, "Shut your goddamn trap--"

"We may not be feds," Jennings, Garcia's younger partner growled at Van Gerbaud in defense, "And Winchester may be a sick felon, but like he said, if there's anything we folk know, it's this town in and out. The air is all _wrong_. You can't smell it from down here and you probably won't be able to tell much of the difference up there, but we know something's wrong."

"Get a handle on your men, Rosetti," Van Gerbaud told the chief.

Rosetti was still reeling from the slander on his office, which compounded his already-existing annoyance of the feds. "I don't think my small-town thinking can do something like that." He looked at the Mayor, "I say we get out of here, ma'am. But if you ask us to hold ground, we will."

Keys looked from Rosetti, to the local police officers. And then she gave Dean a long, measuring stare.

"I can't trust what he says," she told Van Gerbaud, "But I trust my men."

"Oh for god's sakes--"

"As far as I know," Keys said, "You're a guest here at my request, Agent. Cuff Winchester, chain him, leash him to your side if you must, but as Mayor, I am ordering that this town be completely emptied."

" " "

Reade jumped out of the car and flagged down at whatever vehicle he could find on the road. It was one-way outbound from Finn's Canyon so the going was smooth, and since most of the residents had already left, the few cars on the road were official ones from emergency workers.

"Are you all right, sir?" a uniformed officer from the national guard stopped at the shoulder of the road next to Reade.

"My hunting cabin," Reade said breathlessly, relieved to have someone around who looked like he knew what he was doing, "It collapsed in the earthquake. My friend is hurt."

The guard's eyes immediately went steely with focus. "Where?"

"Just off the road," Reade replied, "I got the rubble off of him, and I'm pretty sure he's alive, but I didn't want to move him."

The man nodded, relaying the information on his radio asking for an ambulance.

"They're on their way, hop in," the man ordered, and Reade complied; he figured no one would probably want to steal the matte pink car if he left it behind anyway.

The truck went screeching toward where he had left Sam the moment the door clicked shut.

" " "

The Mayor had barked out orders he was forced to cooperate with, but it didn't rob Van Gerbaud of all his cards. He was determined that the last one out of town would be Dean Winchester.

The evacuation of the personnel was going along fairly quickly, but not nearly fast enough in Dean's eye. The sun had just set, and already it was apparent that the air was getting very foul; even from his basement cell, his throat felt scratchy and he wasn't the only one. He heard coughing here and there, and the Mayor had even revised the evacuation plan further to drive out the elderly officers first.

"They should be moving faster," Dean said quietly, but Van Gerbaud just predictably smirked at him.

"You feel like talking yet?" he asked, "'Cos you're gonna be the last one out of here."

"You're out of your mind," Dean sighed, "If I get killed, you get killed too, right?"

"I stopped worrying about things like that a long time ago," Van Gerbaud guaranteed.

Dean just snorted, which ended in a cough, "Damn air. Are you starting to think I'm right, even just a little?"

Van Gerbaud just narrowed his eyes in irritation.

"Boss," one of the younger feds called to Van Gerbaud, "Last truck's ready."

"All right, Winchester," Van Gerbaud said, "Walk to the bars, hands on your back, and back to us."

Dean was unfortunately familiar with the drill. He walked to the bars as closely as he could, turned around and put his hands to his back. The cold of the cuffs against his wrists was just as familiar. The cuffs to his ankles linked by a short chain was also not new.

They unlocked the cell and escorted him out, one man on each side as he shuffled along. He tried to go as quickly as he could, but Van Gerbaud was doing the opposite.

They shut the cell behind him, and then walked to the stairwell leading out the basement.

"Hey chief," the other fed said to Van Gerbaud, "Except for the damn air, it's actually nice out. There's a full moon."

" " "

Sam didn't stir once, but the paramedics assured Reade that the young man was definitely alive and in stable condition. They put an IV on each of his arms and an oxygen mask over half his face. The damn things looked scarier than they did in the movies, but as long as the professionals said Sam should be fine then who was he to think otherwise? They put a collar on him and strapped him to a board for transport, and were just lifting him into the ambulance when Reade noticed something strange and unfortunately familiar.

There was a tick-tick-ticking sound, small and crisp, and suddenly he noticed worms and insects come out from the wood, all headed in the same direction, away from Finn's Canyon.

The flapping of the wings, that's what had got him to look up in his vision...

Reade looked at the view of Finn's Canyon from his ruined hunting cabin. He didn't hear the flapping of the wings this time because he was too far away, but he still knew what he would find. Birds of all kinds were taking to the sky, like they all knew something no one else did and they were trying to get away.

The moon was full as she hung over the town, perfect, full and glowing. And then a massive plume of smoke rose up from the tallest and largest building in town - the pesticide plant – billowing waves taking to the skies, obscuring the moon. The sky turned from the dull light of early evening to pitch black.

"What the hell--?" someone exclaimed, but Reade wasn't sure who it was because he was lost in premature, overwhelming misery.

" " "

Van Gerbaud, his subordinate and Dean stepped out of the police station just in time to see the massive plume of smoke rising from the plant.

Dean stared at the dark column reaching from earth to heaven and barely felt Van Gerbaud's stunned eyes boring into his face. He didn't care if it was an apology, or surprise that he was right, or... whatever. He only cared that he knew what happened next.

"Too late to get out," Dean said in a clipped tone, deciding for action instead of wondering if he got to die yet again, "This place is gonna get floored. Basement, now--"

The other fed twisted Dean around and dragged him back inside, as Van Gerbaud ran for the truck waiting for them and yelled for the men to get in quickly.

As he was pushed into the stairwell, Dean looked behind him to find Van Gerbaud and four of his men running toward him. Someone stumbled, and Dean's escort ran toward them to help.

Suddenly, there was a white-hot blast, its force throwing Dean off his feet and taking him in flight. His limbs jerked uselessly against the chains that bound him, the explosion sending him down the stairs. To say that he 'landed' would have been an exaggeration. He crashed against the steps and rolled. The concussive force of the explosion and the fall robbed him of all air. He was unconscious before he rolled to a stop at the bottom of the basement stairs.

" " "

"What the hell was that?!" Wei asked, eyes wide as he looked to Bobby Singer for assurance, "Aftershock?"

The Earth shifted again, this time to the advantage of the hunters. They heaved against the thinned rock and soil blocking their exit, and they suddenly found themselves breaking into open air.

It was already night time, but one of unnatural dark. Bobby and Wei coughed; the air was sick and thick, and they looked in horror around them.

Their slight elevation still allowed them to see the town, especially since a good deal of the foliage at the foot of the mountain and bordering the town had been floored by the force of the blast that had flattened Finn's Canyon.

"Dean!" Bobby yelled, breaking into an unthinking run.

"No, Singer!" Wei called as the older hunter started dashing away. He grabbed Bobby by the collar, the force of Bobby's forward momentum and Wei's grip sending the other man to the ground on his ass.

"Oh god," Bobby choked out as he scrambled to his feet, "No--"

"Bobby!" Wei grabbed him by the chin and looked at his eyes, "If they kept him in the basement, he might still be alive, right? But now that the shit has hit the fan, we have to go in smarter, or else we can't help him."

Bobby looked devastated, but he took several quick breaths and nodded.

Wei tore at his sleeve, and wrapped it over his mouth and nose, "This isn't gonna be enough knowing what kind of air is down there, but it's the least we can do."

Bobby did the same as he got to his feet. His voice was still shaky, but his mind was whirring with plans. "Let's go."

" " "

They watched the explosion floor the town below them from where they stood on top of the mountain, mouths agape.

"It's a good thing they emptied that place out," the guard Reade had flagged down earlier whistled, "That was a solid call." His radio buzzed and he pressed it to his ear, listened for awhile before he turned to the EMT's, who tore their eyes from the ruined town and started to load Sam into the ambulance again.

"They're setting up base camp at the north edge of town," he told the EMT's, "Bring him over to the hospital, but I'm guessing they'll call you back in here right after. We're going in as soon as the big bosses think it's safe to start looking for survivors."

_Or bodies_, none of them bothered saying.

"You riding with him?" one of the EMT's asked Reade.

"Yeah," Reade said, "Just gimme a sec."

He took the keys of the Impala and the Viper, locked the cars and jumped in after Sam. They closed the doors and sped away.

" " "

Dean's eyes opened blearily, and he gasped at the horrifying sight right by his face. It was Van Gerbaud's subordinate's severed head.

"_Hey chief_," that now-ruined face had said just minutes earlier, "_Except for the damn air it's actually nice out. There's a full moon..._"

He stifled a horrified sob and tried to move away, but any form of shifting sent overwhelming pain coursing through his veins, and spots danced before his eyes in encompassing, inky, lazy whorls. He was lying on his chest, one cheek pressed against the ground and face turned enough to have a perfect view of that damn head as if he was cursed to see it.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, voice trembling. Talking tickled his throat enough to make him cough. The coughing made his chest feel as if it were caught in an ever-tightening vise; maybe it was because he's been lying on it for awhile, or maybe he had injured his ribs, or maybe it was because the air was stale and thick with fumes and smoke in the basement. Maybe it was all of the above.

He mentally examined himself. He had to know what he was capable of, before he acted. Or... or even hoped that he could act to come out of this alive.

His hands were still cuffed behind him, and his ankles were still chained together. He was sore but he could move as much as the bonds narrowly allowed, which meant –_ pretty much_ – that he could squirm and crawl_._

_ I can work with that_, he determined, as if he had a choice.

His mouth and throat felt dry, and this made the coughing worse. His stomach clenched and rolled with nausea, and he threw up foul-tasting _stuff_ to the ground. He felt like shit, to say the least. The concussive force from the blast of the explosion felt like someone had run him over, and his body had taken a beating from his fall down the stairs. Some form of a concussion was a certainty from the time he was unconscious, and his hearing sounded a little muffled and dull, likely from the loudness of the blast.

All in all, these were things he could probably survive... if the damn air just wasn't so bad.

After evaluating himself, he sized up his situation. It was probably a given that the world above him was floored by the explosion, but the basement looked like it was going to hold for a little while. He looked up at the dusty stairwell from which he had come. He jerked in instinct when he saw the crumpled form of Van Gerbaud, writhing against the steps.

"Van Gerbaud!" he yelled, "Hey, you alive?" He ended the question with a rough cough, hacking up more thick, blackened saliva to the ground. Van Gerbaud didn't respond, but Dean heard him groaning and whimpering.

Dean grunted in pain but squirmed toward the wall. He pressed against it, using it as leverage to push himself up with his legs to a sitting position.

"Hey!" he called out again. Every time he spoke he doubled over in an exhausting coughing spell. He growled in determination and dragged himself up by the wavering strength in his trembling legs on ass, step by step. Awkwardly, he kept his back against the wall for support as he struggled up to where Van Gerbaud was, eventually collapsing on his rump next to the fallen agent.

Van Gerbaud turned to face him, the movement whipping and fast. Dean could see that half his face was burnt out, and there was dark blood coming out of his mouth. He looked... _terminal_, but he still found strength enough to blindly kick out at Dean and press against the other side of the stairwell, as far away from Dean as he could go.

"Get away from me!" he gasped as he gagged, "Get the hell away from me!"

"I didn't cause this," Dean explained as he carefully moved forward, "I told you, the--"

"Get away!" Van Gerbaud screamed, jerking in meager defense. His gaze having lost its smooth, cocky sheen. He had said that he'd stopped thinking about dying on the job, but he sure was thinking about it now. He looked like he was in terrible pain and suffering, and worst of all was the fear. He was afraid of Dean.

"You have to calm down," Dean told him quietly, respecting the distance and holding his ground, "You're hurt pretty bad, but the people outside... they should know we're still here. Someone will come. Just calm down and hang on..."

Van Gerbaud screamed again, and it suddenly occurred to Dean that if his own hearing was muffled, Van Gerbaud's might have been shot to hell from his proximity to the blast. And so he looked on at Dean with crippling fear and anger, could not hear the comforting words.

"You did this!" Van Gerbaud sputtered, even as he gagged out more blood, "You evil, sick son-of-a-bitch! This is all your fault..." he sobbed, "And look at you... probably won't even take home a scar... can't you just die?"

"Someone will come get us," Dean whispered, and _yes_, Van Gerbaud's damn words were scarring even now, "They'll take care of you."

"Oh god," Van Gerbaud gasped, clutching at his chest as he struggled to breathe, "Oh god, Jenna I'm so sorry... the kids... I'm sorry..." His eyes rolled back and his body tightened as he seized.

Dean shot forward, but was unable to do anything else with his bound hands. "Hang on!" he cried out desperately, "Just... hang on-- Help!" he decided to yell instead, his voice breaking and his throat and lungs protesting, "Help!" he yelled out, as loud as he could, as long as he could.

He stopped only when he doubled over coughing, and for a long time the world darkened around him, narrowed to his pain and his profound inability to breathe. If he had passed out, he barely noticed. All he knew was that by the time he lifted his head and turned bleary eyes back to Van Gerbaud, the agent had stopped moving, stopped breathing, he just... _stopped_. His eyes were open but whited out, the irises rolled back. His bloodied mouth was open and slack, stuck in a soundless cry.

"I'm sorry," Dean choked back, feeling helpless and inexplicably dirty. Van Gerbaud looked... familiar. Like a soul ripped apart. Dean backed away and it was his turn now to move as far away from Van Gerbaud as possible. He pressed himself against the wall, trembling in pain and fear and exhaustion. He closed his eyes, tried to calm down, tried to control his rattling breathing. He tried to think about what they'd accomplished here... about all the people who were saved from the blast. But he couldn't take the memory of the nameless agent's severed head or of Van Gerbaud's dying cries from his mind. 4,000 people saved... and still, two men lost made him feel like a dirty failure.

_Oh god, Jenna_, Van Gerbaud had said, and Dean suspected maybe she was a wife, _The kids..._

Dean felt hot tears leaking from his burning eyes. Nothing could cleanse him. _Nothing_. Because saving 4,000 people couldn't absolve him of torturing thousands. People weren't just numbers one could add and subtract. They were individuals, they had Jenna's and kids and brothers and sisters and wives and girlfriends. That's why Van Gerbaud's death could not be eased by his having saved 4,000 people. That's why saving 4,000 people wouldn't have meant anything to him if Sam had died too.

Dean let his body slide sideways down against the wall, eventually resting his entire weight on his right arm on the uneven steps. He laid there miserably, wishing for death and release until he realized that after everything he'd done, if he died now he might go back to hell anyway.

_Then I don't want to die_, he decided, _Someone will come to help. I just have to wait..._

_Easy, right?_

He stared at Van Gerbaud's face and his empty eyes, the sight condemning him for his mistakes and his failures.

"I said I'm sorry already!" he coughed.

_... I hate waiting_.

" " "

Sam's eyes snapped open in panic, mind going from profoundly unconscious and absent to wide-awake. It felt as if just moments had passed since he was running for the door and the hunting cabin collapsed over his head.

He realized he was in the hospital by the second blink; the efficient damn white of the place coupled with the smell of medicine and antiseptic made for an unmistakable combination. By the bustling sounds he could hear from beyond the curtains that were on his left and right side, he guessed he was in the emergency room.

By the third blink, he knew he was not supposed to be here. The hospital in Finn's Canyon had been emptied out, so he had to be at the one in the next town, an hour's drive away. The fact that Dean wasn't sitting beside him however, was the best reason why he wasn't supposed to be here; if Dean wasn't beside him, it only meant that he couldn't be because he was also hurt, or missing, or... or...

He gasped at the sudden pain in his head; he stubbornly pressed IV'd hands against his face, as if he could suppress the pain and keep it from rearing. Bobby, Wei and Reade had saved him from death-by-burial, but the near-death experience he had in accordance with Reade's prediction probably meant that Dean was also in deep shit.

He clenched his eyes against the rolling nausea, and scrambled blindly for handholds to sit up. He felt the rails on his bed shake with the tremor of his tight grip. He breathed through his mouth, and the mask on his face fogged. The moment he was upright, he tore it away from his face.

"Sam!" he heard Reade exclaim as the former street prophet stepped into the enclosure.

"Shut," Sam gasped, "Curtain behind you."

Reade did as he was told, and then stepped forward to put a restraining hand against Sam's shoulder, "Hey, you had a rough time, you should--"

"Where's," Sam growled as he tore off his IV's to Reade's surprised yelping, "Where's Dean?"

"Sam, calm down--"

"Where's Dean?!"

"I don't know," Reade said in a small voice, "I don't know, all right? After the earthquake and the cabin collapse, the cell phone lines died. I tried to reach him, Bobby and Wei but I can't get anything. I pulled you out because I didn't know what else to do, and then I called for help 'cos you were in a bad way. We're at that--"

"I know where we are," Sam said breathlessly. His body was sore, and it was hard putting his thoughts together with the room spinning, "Where're my clothes?"

"They had to ditch them, Sam," Reade replied, "They were torn up and they just cut at the stuff to help you."

Sam shivered with shock and pain, having freed himself from the blankets, "We need to get out of here. What else happened?"

Reade looked around the room and spotted some utility cabinets. He searched through them for some scrubs for Sam, "The earthquake damaged something in the plant. A couple of hours after the quake, she just blew up. The town's just as I saw in my dream, like a fricking wasteland. I haven't been able to get in touch with the other guys, and I've been trying since the explosion. I guess the lines are still out."

"We gotta get back to the cabin," Sam decided even as he swayed where he sat, "That's where they'll go."

"Sam, you can barely sit up," Reade said, but knew it was a lost cause because he was already helping Sam out of his hospital gown and into a pair of scrubs that he had found.

"We have to go back," Sam rasped as the world swayed again. Reade gripped him by the shoulder tightly.

"Do I need to say all this?" Reade enumerated, "Concussion, dislocated shoulder, cracked ribs, sprained--"

"No," Sam sighed, pressing a hand to the bridge of his nose, "No, no you don't. But I think you should take the wheel on our drive back."

"Um," Reade hesitated, "About that... I sorta left all the cars behind. I was worried, so I rode in the ambulance with you."

_Ambulance_, Sam thought. An ambulance would be ideal, actually. They needed supplies, and they needed to surpass all rules of traffic. They were also in a bustling emergency room in the middle of handling a disaster, so the vehicles were shuttling in and out.

"That's perfect," Sam said, "We'll just commandeer one."

" " "

Reade was not a very good driver, and Sam suspected that even without the concussion-fueled nausea, he'd still feel just as... as... slimy and green? He was sure his face was green, and he slumped on the seat like he was ready to pour out of his skin.

He tried closing his eyes, tried opening them, tried crossing them to meet at the tip of his nose. Nothing helped, and he didn't want to stop on the side of the road to be sick; every second counted.

"I actually don't have a license," Reade said, "I used to though."

Sam wanted to yell at him, but anger was nauseating too, so he just pressed his lips together in a tight line, and clenched his eyes shut.

"I mean, why should I?" Reade explained, "After I won the lottery, I had these drivers and so on."

"Good for you," Sam tried to be responsive, but he clamped his mouth shut again. Any movement that remotely opened his mouth, had him wanting to do something else with it, like throw up everything he's eaten in his life, and then turn himself inside-out.

They sped dizzyingly past traffic, everyone rightfully making room for the ambulance and especially diligently since news of the Finn's Canyon disaster in the next town was made known in the media.

"And I've never slugged a guy before too," Reade said, "Made me feel like Rocky. That was a decent swing, wasn't it?"

It was a lucky swing, more like, but Sam didn't bother to say so. In their quest to steal an ambulance - _that sounded worse than it should, Sam reflected - _Reade barely slugged an EMT who had dodged most of the hit, stumbling back and tripping over a parking stop sign and knocking himself unconscious when he fell to the floor.

"I thought my fist would hurt more," Reade mused, "That I'd get these fancy cuts and bruises on the knuckles, but I guess that's just the movies."

They fell silent for a long moment, and Sam froze in a miraculous position that cleared his blurred vision and kept his pains manageable. He watched the world spin past his window, softening from the building-lined urban landscape of a city to trees and mountains in the dark as they drove toward Finn's Canyon.

"Hey," Reade glanced at him, "You're awake, right? 'Cos I think I'm not supposed to let you fall asleep or something."

"I'm awake," Sam confirmed quietly, "I just... found a spot."

"Ho-kay..." Reade said nervously... "I've never taken care of anyone before either, so if I'm doing a sucky job..."

Sam smiled to himself a little, "You saved my life, Reade. I think that's a great start."

"I wanna be good at looking after people," Reade nodded, "I mean, I'm not gonna be alone forever. I'm gonna find someone special, have my own family. And I'll provide for them really good too. Anything and everything."

"What are you planning to do after all this is over?" Sam found himself both curious, and wanting to distract himself from unproductive, worried thoughts of Dean.

"I don't think I can do what you guys do," Reade chuckled, "But I've figured a few things out. I'll tell you... maybe later. Everyone should help in the best way they can."

The answer puzzled Sam, but he didn't like the feeling of confusion in his already-burdened head, so he let that go for now.

"You were a handyman or something before you won the lottery, right?" Sam asked, "You're going back to that?"

"Nope," Reade replied, "I was thinking of traveling the world, see what else is out there. I think I got carried away with my money for a little while. Finn's Canyon felt like it was all mine, and I forgot how large the rest of the Earth is."

"If you're counting on winning the lottery again," Sam said, "Give us a ring on some good numbers, will you? Real ones, this time."

"Oh, if I see new numbers I'll just shove them where I can forget them," Reade said, "Winning the lottery a third time? I'll just end up with hunters on my ass again. And that's kind of like cheating, taking a good chunk out of the world like that. I have enough. I told you I had some stuff saved up..." his voice trailed off, and his eyes lit in realization.

"Wait a minute," Reade said, "You think I'm poor?"

"Um," Sam frowned, "You're practically a squatter in your own house, you don't have anything there, everything I read and researched indicated you lost your money, that you're a drunk, rambling outside a supermarket... what were we supposed to think?"

Reade laughed, "Fair enough. But no. I kept telling you boys I had stuff set aside. There is no way on god's green earth that anyone can burn up a million dollars in a hole like Finn's Canyon, Sam. Much less tens of millions. I got more than enough left."

"Then what's with the...?"

"I told you, I forgot that Finn's Canyon was small," Reade said, "I suppose I just got complacent. And after that disaster with wife number two, it was just as well people thought whatever they wanted to think about me and my money. I want wife number three to love the real me."

"A drunk hobo professing the end of the world outside the supermarket?" Sam smirked, "That's the real you?"

Reade shrugged.

"I'm gonna tell you something my brother taught me," Sam said, "You have to meet women halfway, man. Give them something nice to look at, something to think about, something to remember."

With his thoughts drifting back to Dean, Sam fell quiet and pensive again.

"I'm gonna try them again," Sam said, grabbing his cell phone from his pocket. The signals were still shot, and he muttered a curse.

"He's probably fine, Sam," Reade said, "And just waiting for us. Probably going crazy looking for you, and for the keys to his car."

"You were the one who said," Sam pointed out, "That you were afraid maybe we can't change the future."

"I did say that," Reade admitted, "But you're here, and you're... mostly all right. The people of Finn's Canyon are all right. We do what we can, we face what's in front of us, that's what your brother said, and maybe I'm supposed to know the future to change it. I can believe that now. We're gonna be okay somehow, all of us."

**To be continued...**


	7. Out for the Count

**Author: Mirrordance**

**Title: Open, Shut**

**Summary:** A street prophet foresees a deadly disaster. He goes to the only people who would believe him: the Winchesters and Bobby Singer. It's an open and shut case except the only solution is - how do you empty a town of four thousand people? Post-_Family Remains_.

" " "

**Open, Shut**

" " "

**6: Out for the Count**

" " "

Bobby Singer on a mission was at his very worst and his very best. He was single-minded, and it was overwhelming, impressive and scary to watch him in his most efficient and casual violence.

He and Wei reached the foot of the mountain – the edge of town – in record time; this was easier than it would have been, given that the explosion had wiped out a lot of the foliage at the bottom. The two hunters traveled a smooth decline, in a straight line. An SUV was just at the edge of the explosion; one side caught the brunt of it, but she remained on her wheels and looked to be running. Bobby practically tore open the door and dragged the sputtering driver out, and then left him right on the street.

"We're just gonna leave him here?" Wei asked as the two men took over the car.

"He's right at the very edge of town," Bobby said tersely, "He can walk out if he wanted. And emergency groups should be coming in, they'll get to him in no time if he decides to wait."

He revved the engine of the 4-wheel drive. He knew exactly where the police station was, had it mapped in his head. He also knew that the shortest distance between two points was a straight line, so he just careened in that direction; the car was tough, the terrain bumpy, but essentially the town was flattened. He'd reach Dean any moment. He simply _had _to.

" " "

The SUV screeched to a dust-kicking stop, and Bobby got out of the car and immediately started coughing at the toxic air, even from beneath his makeshift mask.

"We can't stay here too long," Wei choked out as well, as the two men walked side by side to where the police station had once stood.

Finn's Canyon was hot as a furnace, and the air was thick and cloudy around them. Small fires dotted the landscape of hollow shells of houses and buildings and isolated walls jutting out on the ground. Cars were littered left and right, knocked on their sides, the metal twisted.

"They kept him in a cell in the basement," Bobby said as he toed away a few pieces of debris. He saw charred human remains where the entrance to the station should have been, and though it sickened him, he looked carefully at the bodies, Wei also examining beside him.

"I don't think Dean's any of them," Wei said softly. Bobby felt the same way, but he had to hear it from someone else.

"The stairwell should be somewhere..." Bobby murmured, "Here!" He heaved off a piece of wall, and found the battered cement stairs leading down to the basement, looking mostly-intact and spared by the blast. He was immediately rewarded by the sight of Dean, lying down on the steps, looking up at him blearily.

The younger hunter's sooted face stared up at him, and Dean's green eyes blinked lazily. "Bob-" he tried to say, broken voice cut by dry hacking that had Bobby running down the stairs, not caring if the structure was stable after the blast or not. He heard Wei curse in disapproval behind him.

Bobby skidded to a stop on his knees by Dean's side, placed a palm to his shoulder reassuringly. "I gotcha."

Dean kept staring at the older hunter like he wasn't sure Bobby was really there. "They won't," Dean coughed, "They won't stop looking at me."

Bobby frowned, and then followed Dean's line of sight to the severed head on the floor and the body behind him. He grimaced, and scooted to block Dean's view.

"Does anything hurt?" Bobby asked him, "Is anything broken?"

Dean shook his head, and then closed his eyes against rolling nausea. His lips trembled like he was about to get sick, but he pressed them together, swallowed thickly, and took calming breaths.

"Okay," Bobby said, and noted the cuffs on Dean's wrists and ankles. "Your daddy would have wrung your neck, not getting out of these on your own."

Dean just grunted at the joke, as Bobby drew out a handy pin from his pocket and started picking at the locks. He set Dean free as Wei squatted beside them.

"How are we doin'?" Wei asked.

"Nothing too bad," Dean gasped, "It's just... my chest feels real tight. And this fucking air... keep feeling like I'm gonna be sick or something. I just gotta... just gotta get outta here, I think. Where's Sam?"

"Safe and waiting for you," Bobby replied.

Dean found the heart to smile a little, "He's gonna kill me."

"You know it," Bobby guaranteed.

"Got... got any water?" Dean whispered in quiet request. Bobby looked at Wei worriedly as the other hunter's eyes raked over Dean's form, assessing the situation.

"You can have some in a bit," Wei said. Bobby shifted to make room for him and immediately, his adroit hands felt along Dean's head, neck and back, and then his limbs.

"I'll check him out," Wei said to Bobby as he worked, "Look around, will you? We need a first aid kit, anything medical you can possibly find down here, and anything we can cover our noses and mouths with."

Bobby patted Dean's shoulder reassuringly before turning away and walking down the stairs to look through the rubble of the basement. There had to be a storage or utility room somewhere down there.

Wei continued his inspection of Dean's body, and then looked at Dean's face to find his eyes closed.

"Hey, hey!" Wei complained, shaking him a little, "No sleeping yet, all right?"

Dean grunted but understood and peeled his eyes open. He frowned in confusion. "Where's Bobby?"

Wei pursed his lips together, concerned. The disorientation wasn't promising. "He's looking for supplies, remember?"

Dean's glazed eyes said 'no,' but he just nodded. He closed his eyes again.

"Hey," Wei said, grabbing a bottle of water from his pack. The water caught some firelight, and it gleamed like the bribe that it was. "Stay awake and you get some of this."

Dean frowned at him, but he let Wei pull him up to sit and lean against the wall. Wei then removed the cap and wiggled the drink in Dean's line of sight.

"Thanks," Dean growled, and he tried to swipe the bottle from Wei's hand. The swipe went wide though, missing the bottle by inches, which is something that Dean tilted his head to marvel at. Wei was worried and decidedly not as amused. He kept a stern grip on the thing and put the spout to Dean's lips.

"Not too much right away," Wei told him calmly.

Dean looked belligerent, but complied with a few careful sips before regretfully watching Wei take the bottle away. Wei wet a piece of cloth, and then wiped at Dean's sooty face.

"Hey!" Dean exclaimed in disapproval before a coughing spell tore from his struggling lungs.

"I need to see you better," Wei explained hastily as Dean settled down and just decided to let the doctor do whatever the hell he wanted, "And I want to get rid of all the toxic crap that's anywhere near your nose, eyes and mouth. We'd have to ditch your clothes soon too, and clean you up. But this is the best I can do right now."

With the water cleaning away some of the grime, Wei could see that the injured hunter had reddish burns on his nose and around his mouth, and the rest of his face was grayish even with most of the dirt off. Wei also wiped black and red-tinged saliva from the corners of Dean's mouth.

"You sure don't look happy," Dean commented with a knowing smirk and sad eyes, just before he started to cough again. The sound was shallow and short, a grinding, whistling wheeze. His body folded as his stomach clenched. "I'm gonna be sick," he gasped, scant moments before doing precisely that. He turned his head away from Wei, his body tightening and coiling as he wretched out poison from his body.

He was tense as a spring, just wound up. Wei could see the veins on the side of his neck, and then again on the back of his hands as they clutched at the ground. His muscles trembled in shock and imbalance, and his legs started to kick out in jerky, unpredictable movements.

"Shit," Wei muttered, grabbing for Dean as his eyes rolled back and he fell forward, his entire body spasming now, shaking in convulsions with coiled, rigid limbs seizing.

"Come on," Wei grunted as Dean's body rattled against his, "You've survived this long. Just a little bit more."

It felt like forever, but then again it also felt like a moment. Wei thought of the single, absolute _suicidal _horror of having to be the unfortunate guy to tell Sam Winchester that his brother was dead. That saying about messengers who shouldn't get shot was going to be thrown out the _fucking _window along with his ass--

And then suddenly Dean was a still, dead weight in his arms. Wei sighed in relief and laid him back down. The former doctor checked Dean's airways if they were obstructed, checked his eyes for responsiveness, and then marveled when he stirred awake with a groan.

"You really are a stubborn sonofabitch," Wei breathed, ending the statement with a cough. He knew they had to get out of there as soon as they could. Dean needed help _yesterday _and no one could survive this toxic air for very long even if they were at the peak of health. He was just about to call out to Bobby when the other hunter emerged from his search with an armful of things that he tried to balance, as he himself was coughing.

"Gas masks from the riot gear," Bobby said after collecting himself, laying two masks on the floor. Wei macabrely thought that the masks looked like severed heads too, next to the real one.

"And then a decent kit," Bobby said, putting down a large, plastic box.

"We need some O2," Wei said quietly, looking at Dean worriedly, "He had a mild seizure and he's just coming to, but if I'm not wrong, it will get bad again soon. Likely worse."

"You're starting to talk like Reade with all the moaning and groaning of the gloom and doom of the apocalypse," Dean mumbled.

"You need a hospital," Wei told him flatly.

Bobby raked through the med kit and handed Wei a small, portable oxygen canister. Wei read some of the markers to ensure that it was still good, toggled at a few levers, and then put the mask over Dean's face.

Dean opened his eyes and his chest rose massively for a few breaths, before he broke into a vicious cough. Wei pulled him up to sit again and slapped at his back, hoping to keep the air moving and the congestion at bay, before handing the canister to Bobby.

"Take a whiff of that yourself," Wei instructed Bobby, "And then give it back to me. We have to get out of here right now, out to decent air."

Bobby did as instructed, and then started coughing too. He took a few breaths, and then gave the oxygen back to Wei, who put it back over Dean's nose and mouth. Bobby put on one of the riot-gear gas masks, and then offered the other one to Wei.

Wei grabbed Dean's slack hand and closed it around the canister, and Dean's fingers tightened against it as he took over holding it. The clean air was making him more alert.

Wei slipped on his own mask, and then stood up. "We gotta go. I'll take care of him."

Bobby nodded in understanding; Wei was younger and stronger after all, and the best thing about old men was that they were wise enough to know when to give in.

Wei wound Dean's free arm around his shoulder and pulled him to his feet. Bobby grabbed the kit he'd laid on the floor, and the three men carefully walked up the stairs, out of the basement and then to the car.

" " "

Dean sagged against the window at the door of the backseat, where Wei sat beside him as Bobby drove them out of town.

"Keep that over your face, Dean," Bobby admonished the younger hunter whose eyes were drooping sleepily, and whose hands were starting to go slack on the oxygen. Dean ignored him, and looked about to doze off.

Wei reached over to help him with holding the canister, but Dean swatted at him, saying, "I think I've had enough of yer hands today, doc."

Wei sighed in exasperation and ended up coughing. The sound was dry and thinly airy, and he swore to himself that he'd never take breathing for granted again, and that he would probably quit smoking. _Probably_.

Dean hesitantly lowered the oxygen and offered it to Wei, "I think I've been hogging this, haven't I?"

Wei shook his head and waved him off.

Dean stared at him stubbornly, unused to taking the mask when everyone seemed as hungry for air as he was. He tried stifling a cough, ended up coughing so hard he started to turn vaguely blue, and Wei was shoving his head between his knees and pressing the O2 back on his face.

"How bad's it gonna be?" Bobby said without turning his head. Dean obliviously tried to catch a breath, but it sounded like he was on the losing end of a geriatric marathon.

"He was down there a long time," Wei replied quietly as he pounded against Dean's back, "The smoke inhalation's a given. He looks like he got sideswiped by that blast, so I'm expecting thermal injuries to the respiratory tract, maybe some concussive internal injuries too, I'm not yet sure. As if the blast and the smoke ain't bad enough, we gotta consider other issues in an explosion like this. It's that damned toxic air. That means chemical injury too and I can guarantee you this - poisoning. I don't know what shit they were mixing up in that plant, but it's pesticides in its most concentrated forms taking to the air, Singer, so you can imagine the worst. The really nasty symptoms of all this will present in the next few hours; we want to really pay attention when he stops coughing, to airway obstruction, respiratory distress. The toxic air might also have a systemic effect: you know, tissue damage, neurological symptoms. He needs to be heavily medicated and monitored: drugs, intubation, suction, the whole nine yards. Smoke inhalation injuries and chemical exposures like this are severe and as you can tell, pretty damn comprehensive."

"But," Bobby stammered, "But he's conscious, he's lucid--"

"I am!" Dean rasped in agreement from beneath Wei's hold.

"Doesn't matter," Wei said, "There's going to be fluid build-up and swelling, chemical imbalances... bodily reactions that can be dangerous if unchecked. It's also why we should both get checked out too. Especially you."

"Why?"

"You're..." Wei bit his tongue, "Older."

Bobby just growled at that, "You know the boys have some big trouble with the law. The further he is from Finn's Canyon, the better off he'll be. How much time are we talking about?"

"Not a lot," Wei replied, "I can't say this any more bluntly, but you shouldn't expect to take him anywhere far, sitting on the back of an SUV, sipping on a lame-assed can of O2 and expecting him to live long enough to get there."

"Now, that's just mean," Dean frowned from his position, his voice muffled.

" " "

Reade watched, fascinated, as Sam's fingers drummed against the dashboard of the ambulance, his long, graceful digits pounding on the plastic, and then moving left to right and back again. It was the injured-version of pacing.

"Want me to sling you over my shoulder and we can take a furious pacing walk together outside?" he asked Sam wryly.

The younger Winchester was unamused, "Did you see that goddamn town?"

_Who can survive that, _they both thought, but rightfully did not mention aloud.

"They should be here by now," Sam said darkly, grabbing for his phone for the nth time since they'd parked in front of the collapsed cabin.

"Maybe you should uh..." Reade suggested, "Take a nap or something."

"Concussion," Sam mumbled, "And not until I know Dean is--"

Both men started at the sound of an approaching car. Sam drew himself out from the passenger seat of the ambulance, and held tight to the door for balance. Reade jogged to Sam's side, in case the younger Winchester had any stupid ideas of running to his brother in the state he was in.

"Thank God," Sam breathed, seeing his brother in the backseat of the battered SUV. Their eyes met and held, even from feet away and with Dean behind grimy glass windows.

The car stopped, and Wei and Bobby disembarked. Dean swung his door open but remained where he was, making Sam practically jump forward toward him.

_Woah_, he thought as the world twisted, changed axis or something. Reade caught him by the arm and steadied him, and he saw Bobby doing the same for Dean, who had apparently shot forward upon seeing Sam sway.

Their resigned friends brought them face to face.

"What happened to you?" Dean rasped.

Sam jerked a thumb at the collapsed cabin, before jutting his chin at Dean, "What happened to you?"

Dean snickered at him and jerked a thumb in the direction of the profoundly destroyed Finn's Canyon.

"Always gotta one-up me?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, yeah," Dean sighed, before doubling over in a long, exhausting cough. Wei pressed the oxygen into his hands again, and he complied with the unspoken order by putting it over his face. Sam's worried eyes shot from Dean to Bobby.

"With the ambulance," Wei said to Bobby upon spotting the parked vehicle, "He has an excellent shot."

"What's he talking about?" Sam asked.

" " "

They traded Winchesters; Dean was passed on to Reade, who ushered him over to the ambulance as Sam settled on the hood of the Impala to suffer a check-up under bribery of an update on his older brother's health. Bobby hovered worriedly over Wei's shoulder, holding the chart Reade had also thoughtfully stolen from the hospital relating to Sam's injuries.

Wei's hands were firm and sure as he examined the stitches on Sam's head, shining a pen light on his eyes.

"So what were you saying about Dean?" Sam asked, gaze trailing to his brother after the eye examination.

"Smoke inhalation injuries," Wei murmured, as he moved his probing hands down Sam's neck, and then stopping at the injured shoulder. "And pesticide poisoning from what I can see. Likely concussive injuries from the blast too. We have to get him to a hospital right away."

"Then what are we doing h--"

"The ride to the hospital is going to be fairly long," Wei replied, "The nearest one is an hour away, and if you were buried under a goddamn house and unconscious for a couple of hours, I need to know what I'll be dealing with on the road, because I'm all you both will have for a little while."

Sam's gaze was back on his brother's form, hunched on a bench in the back of the ambulance, breathing carefully. He looked away suddenly, and Wei knew Dean had stared right back at them just then.

"When Reade saw him die," Sam said shakily, "Remember he said that Dean was cut at the throat, and black things were coming out of his mouth? What's that got to do with all this?"

"Huh," Wei tilted his head in thought, and he lifted up Sam's shirt to examine his heavily-bruised and bandaged chest. "Maybe he was seeing him live, Sam, instead of the other way around."

"What do you mean?"

"His injuries are very complex," Wei explained, "And the most life-threatening symptoms can present hours after the exposure to the smoke and the poisonous air – swelling of airways, fluid build-up, chemical imbalances from the lack of oxygen and the toxic materials... Even now you can see his attention shortening, his disorientation increasing, his breathing growing more laborious. When his respiratory and neurological functions become severely disrupted, we will have to intubate, or, if Reade's vision proves correct, possibly even to harsher measures of breathing for him." He tapped at his throat meaningfully.

Sam gulped nervously, "What else?"

"Those are procedures I'd rather not do in the field even if I had practice, which I haven't had since I stopped working," Wei said, stopping his examination when Sam winced in pain.

"It's nothing," Sam snapped impatiently, "Just keep going."

Wei wasn't certain if Sam meant to continue with Dean's update or with the examination, but he resumed both. "Pneumonia's practically a given, but the field trach also opens him up to infections. Difficulty in breathing also puts a strain on his heart. That's just from the smoke and the blast, aside from the possible poisonous effects the toxins in the pesticide chemicals that he breathed might cause, which I cannot definitively predict at this point. He's already seized on me once, Sam. I don't know what toxins are on that air. The point is that he's going to need a lot of medical attention immediately and for a fairly long time, and there are decisions you're going to have to make, especially," he glanced up at Bobby, "Especially given your delicate situation with the law."

"The further we are from Finn's Canyon," Bobby said, "The better for Dean after that stunt he pulled claiming he planted a bomb in this town. Bringing him to the closest hospital practically guarantees he's going to get spotted, but bringing him further might kill him."

"That's not a choice," Sam said with a resolute shake of his head. Bobby gripped his arm when he swayed.

"I can't risk him dying," Sam gasped, "No way. We bring him to the closest place, and if we run into trouble, we'll deal with it later." He paused and licked his lips, "Does he ah... does he know all of this?"

"He knows he's not doing so good," Bobby replied, "He's a hunter, Sam, he knows his own body."

" " "

"This is like high school all over again," Dean smirked at Reade from beneath the oxygen mask after looking at his brother, Bobby and Wei talking, "All the girls gossiping about me."

"Sam's worried about you," Reade said.

"Yeah, about him," Dean said, jerking his head in the direction of the collapsed structure of the log cabin, "So you pulled Sam outta there, huh?"

Reade nodded.

"Thank you," Dean said gravely.

Reade smiled at him, and they both lifted their gazes when Bobby and Wei headed toward them with Sam, held by both arms, more-or-less walking between them.

"We were talking about you too!" Dean tried to joke, before breaking into a furious cough. He dropped the can of oxygen in favor of grabbing at his chest.

His friends moved fast; Bobby angled to take all of Sam's weight, Reade sprinted out of the way, and Wei hopped into the back of the ambulance and manhandled Dean from the bench to the stretcher. Dean curled to his side, shuddering with the effort to catch a decent breath. Wei's eyes roved around the ambulance quickly to see what he had in his arsenal. He snatched the oxygen mask and placed it over Dean's face, and then began setting up bags of IV's. He stuck two at the crook of Dean's elbow, and then hurriedly motioned for Sam.

Bobby helped the younger Winchester into the back of the ambulance, and when he was settled on the bench, Wei worked on a set of IV's for him also.

"Singer," Wei said as he took care of Sam, "Take over the O2 that Dean dropped, you'll need that. Reade, on the wheel now. We need to get outta here."

" " "

Winchesters in general did not like showing injury or illness. Such things were inevitable in their line of work however, and they dealt with it the way they dealt with any other unfortunate thing that came their way: they read the signs and looked after each other.

Their father, who was gruffly strategic when he was feeling well, tended to turn seething and homicidal when hurt or sick. He turned aggressive and combative, like a predator caught in a bad spot, blindly lashing out in an effort to protect itself. He was made better by Dean's patience and Sam's stubbornness: Dean looked after his hurts in that gently cajoling way that was so like his mother's style that it sometimes made John's attitude worse, and Sam kept him in line by biting right back and throwing punches and threats of his own.

Bullheaded and vocal Sam, who was usually either complaining about life or constructively contributing to research and planning, turned pensive and quiet when he himself was injured or under the weather. It was always only Dean who knew what to do with him; Dean filled up the quiet with assurances and lewd jokes when fairy tales stopped working after Sam learned how to read for himself. John kind of just... hovered over the two of them like an uncertain shadow, wordlessly passing on hunts and buying Sam's favorite food, but leaving all the rest to Dean. There had been a time just after Mary's death that Sam had fallen ill. John didn't know what to do and so the absence of his wife felt magnified. The same memory surfaced in his eyes anytime Sam got sick or hurt, that same helplessness and loss. And so whenever Sam was hurting, John fell silent also and just let Dean take care of his brother.

Dean's tell was just as distinct; it was a childhood quirk he never lost. Loud booming voice turned modulated, tall tales and boisterous teasing turned clipped and abrupt, and he held himself in a posture both tight and small, as if he just wanted to vanish off the face of the earth. He'd accept aid in profound embarrassment but with resignation, just wanting to get better as quickly as possible to get out of the situation. Sam's overtly worried mother-henning tended to drive him insane, especially when all he wanted was to either get better or be ignored. John's gruff style worked best on him, all-business and no-nonsense. He would always get better faster with John's orders for compliance and Sam's caring hands.

Sam thought about these things as he watched Wei tend to his older brother in the ambulance. They'd been on the road for a good number of minutes. Miraculously, Dean was conscious but quiet and pliant, making no move to fight his way out of the stretcher which the doctor had angled up so that Dean was leaning in a seated position, instead of lying flat on his back. An oxygen mask covered half his face, but Sam didn't need to see anything else to know how his brother felt; his weary green eyes were over-bright as they stared at the ceiling. It looked like he was trying to have an out-of-body experience, like he was wishing like hell that he was anywhere else but there. Dean ignored all of them; Sam and Bobby staring, and Wei's hands affixing leads on his chest and fingers to monitor his vital signs.

His body tightened suddenly, and his face reddened when he stifled a cough.

"Don't," Wei said, "Don't hold it in."

Dean closed his eyes miserably and nodded, just as a set of hacking coughs erupted from his shaking body. The spell lasted frighteningly long, so long that Sam watched with a growing fear that it would never stop. He couldn't get air in between the bursts that sputtered out of him, and his face was turning red in strain. Every muscle of his brother's body tensed and tightened as he coughed; eyes shut, fingers digging into the white cloth of the stretcher, stomach folded, leg muscles clenched, and he could see the veins popping out against Dean's neck and forehead. He curled up, as if he was trying to conserve himself, and Sam's trembling hands drifted to Dean's back, patting it with hesitation. When Dean's coughing finally subsided, he was curled on his side, head facing away from Sam. He was still shaking, so Sam reached for the thin white sheet gathered near Dean's legs and pulled it up to his older brother's shoulders.

Dean tried to get his breath back, and it sounded like it was coming through a thin straw. Sam squeezed Dean's shoulder reassuringly, and then on a whim said, "So... 4,000. Not bad, Dean."

For a long moment, Dean didn't face him, and Sam worried that he had lost consciousness. He said it again, and was in the middle of the number when Dean turned toward him with an irritated glare.

"I got it the first time," Dean rasped at him.

"Paid," Sam said quietly, "Good job."

Dean jerked his gaze away, and put his hand over his furiously rising and falling chest. "No... Lost--" he choked out, body jerking as he started coughed again, "They were... running at me... and..."

"Tell him to stop talking," Wei told Sam quietly as he looked at the readouts of Dean's vitals worriedly.

"Been trying for years," Sam murmured as he planted a firm hand on Dean's shoulder again, "Hey. Dean, hey!"

Dean turned his gaze back to Sam, and his suddenly deep and infinitely lonely eyes pinned the younger Winchester into frozen alarm. Dean raised his hand from his chest and lowered the mask from his face. His eyes were inconsolable but he laughed humorlessly, "Why... it all feels the same," he gasped, "I don't... understand. Time... waste... what a joke."

"Dean--" Sam admonished as he reached to put the mask back on. Dean took his younger brother's wrist mid-grab in an unwavering grip.

"It's _on_ me!" Dean choked out in a sudden panic, and Sam blinked in alarm at the black-streaked saliva dribbling from his lips, "I can't... can't get rid of it!"

The words were rambling and desperate, but Sam knew full well what Dean was getting at: _There's gotta be something that wipes the slate clean. Otherwise... otherwise it's just... _on_ me_, Dean had said, just days before when he was justifying why on god's earth he'd been counting like an obsessive-compulsive and why he had to save this town, even at the risk of death_._

He started choking more heavily, body bucking. Sam snapped alert, and gripped Dean by the back of his neck as he readjusted the mask over his brother's face and held it there.

"Breathe, man," Sam begged, "You'll be all right, just breathe."

But Dean was lost, his eyes were mad with pain and disappointment. Trapped in a failing body was a tired, tainted soul. All he could smell was poison and smoke, and when his gaze lost its focus, he lost one more thing that bound him to the rest of the world. He was alone in his misery in almost every possible way, barely able to hear his brother's words, unable to be comforted. Sam watched in panic as awareness faded from Dean's eyes, and his body arched in an effort to get more air.

"Dean, please..." Sam begged as his brother shook against his grip. He barely noticed Wei throw things around behind him, looking for the proper tools to do what he had to do to save Dean's life.

"Dean!" Sam yelled. The movement and the yelling was making dark spots dance over his own wavering vision. He clenched his eyes to keep the nausea at bay, and then opened them again to stare intently at Dean's face.

"One," he choked out, "I'll give you a number. I only got one brother, that's all that counts. I'd have let this place burn to save you. Don't leave me alone, all right? Fight this-- Dean!"

Dean writhed and jerked, arms flailing desperately on his sides as he struggled for air. Sam angled himself against the stretcher, leaned his brother's body against his and kept a steadying arm around Dean's chest, his free hand holding the mask over Dean's face.

"Breathe with me, man," Sam whispered desperately against his ear, taking as massive an inhale as he could against Dean's back, "You feel that? Breathe with me."

Tears leaked from the corners of Dean's wide, senseless eyes. The green pools were deep, looking searchingly up at the ceiling of the ambulance. He looked perfectly lost, but something inside him must have heard. Something inside him always heard Sam. The mindless panic of jerking and bucking ceased, and though each laborious inhale was inadequate and broken by a cough before going deep, his exhausted body started to calm down.

"That's it," Sam soothed, "Just breathe with me."

Dean's eyes started to register with more awareness, and a few breaths later he patted at Sam's arm wearily, in acknowledgment. His eyes shuttered to half-mast, but they were more alert.

They stayed like that for a few more minutes. Both Winchesters were afraid to move, afraid to jar something that would change the situation. But there was nothing that could stop the inevitable failing of a body so assaulted and exhausted, and little by little, Dean's breathing went shallower and shorter, chest moving furiously beneath Sam's hand. His vigorous coughing turned sporadic, and then soft, and then ceased altogether.

Wei looked at some readings, and then looked at Sam grimly.

"You have to understand--" Wei began, wanting to say that he hadn't done any of what he was supposed to do in a long time.

"Don't," Sam told him, eyes steely and determined, "Don't say anything. Just do what you have to do."

Wei nodded shortly, and lowered the headrest of the stretcher to lay it completely flat. "Stop the van!" he yelled to Reade on the front seat.

Reade complied, and looked back at them, "What's going on?"

"You with us, Dean?" Sam asked as he lowered his brother to lie flat on the stretcher. Dean's head lolled limply, and his eyes had closed. The vital monitors started to buzz alarmingly at them, but Wei did not look surprised.

"You sure about this?" he asked Sam.

"I got no choice," Sam said, bitterly.

Wei tilted Dean's head up at an angle and opened his mouth, looked down his throat with a slim, lighted scope.

"He's progressing so quickly," he said as he drew out a gleaming syringe and a smooth, shining, silver surgical knife, "I was hoping we wouldn't have to do this here."

Wei injected something into Dean's IV, waited a few moments, and then felt at Dean's throat for a very specific spot - and pressed the blade down against the soft skin.

" " "

There was a kind of intimacy to it, breathing for somebody.

Sam watched Wei's hand rhythmically fist and release against the bag that breathed air into the tube shoved into the hole in his brother's throat. Dean's chest rose and fell with every breath forced into him.

The ambulance started up again, and Sam gripped at Dean's hand. His grip tightened and released according to the rhythm of Wei's, according to the rhythm of Dean's breathing. He imagined it was him keeping his brother alive, imagined that he knew what to do to make everything all right.

They sped toward the hospital.

**To be concluded** in the last chapter, _7: Accounts_. Thanks for reading and 'til the next post!


	8. Accounts and Afterword

**Author: Mirrordance**

**Title: Open, Shut**

**Summary:** A street prophet foresees a deadly disaster. He goes to the only people who would believe him: the Winchesters and Bobby Singer. It's an open and shut case except the only solution is-how do you empty a town of four thousand people? Post-_Family Remains_.

**Hi guys!**

The final installment of _Open, Shut _is here, **Chapter 7: **_**Accounts**_and at the end, my standard **Afterword with a Preview of a work-in-progress, **_**Ever This Day**_. Thank you so much for taking the time to read, alert, favorite and especially review the fic - extended thanks are in the Afterword, along with explanations and background info on the story :) C&C's are always welcome, I hope you enjoyed _Open, Shut_ and 'til the next post!!!

" " "

**Open, Shut**

" " "

**7: Accounts**

" " "

Singer, Reade and Wei had bullied Sam out of rolling-out-the-stretcher duty, and he was pissed and protesting until he unloaded himself off the ambulance and realized that his body was pissed and protesting _at him_. He swayed when his feet hit the concrete of the busy ER driveway, and he slammed his hand on the metal steps of the back of the ambulance to keep his tenuous balance. The sound it made was a sharp, embarrassing _clang!_ that had Reade abandoning Dean-detail to turn to him.

"Go," Sam gasped out, except Reade was not listening to him. And why on god's green earth would he? This ridiculous mashed-up bunch of rag-tag hunters he and Dean somehow stumbled into hasn't been in the mood to listen to him _at all _since this job started.

_Hitting me on the head_, he enumerated spitefully to himself, _Keeping me on the bench_--

Reade wordlessly slung Sam's arm over his shoulders and walked with him. It was more than enough to appease Sam; he just satisfied defying the growing distance between him and Dean, who was being quickly rolled away into the ER.

Reade kept him on his feet as he watched the medical personnel work on his older brother. This was an old scene, watching Dean duke it out with death; he's been watching this since they were kids. But it was an old scene that just never got _old_; it always felt new and intrusive and terrifying.

Everything seemed to transpire in some weird, contradictory buzz; busy, loud and all-encompassing but detached and incomprehensible at the same time. Hands – no longer Wei's or Bobby's – descended on his brother's still form, effecicient and helpful, but also inextricably cold. Scissors cut at his clothes, and Sam watched as the strips were tossed to the ground, looking lifeless and irrelevant when they had once protected and characterized and cloaked a man. They looked like they were going to cast away Dean's necklace with the same irreverence and Sam was going to open his mouth to protest, until a nurse – spotting the light tanline on Dean's neck marking years of faithful, unwavering wear – handed it to Wei who was nearest her before she continued working.

Dean was limp throughout the initial assessment, just a body really, pliant limbs getting moved and turned and poked and prodded like a piece of meat. Sam had hated it, until Dean's eyes popped open in pain and alarm for one remarkably lucid moment, before they rolled back and his body jerked, and then started to stiffen and descend into convulsions. People – _strangers –_ held him as he rattled in his skin. The noise was unbearable as the machines that monitored him shrieked, and the metal of the bed he was laying in went _tik-tik-tik_ as it shook with him. Hovering just above the racket was the profoundly alien calm of cold orders tossed around the room, equally discomfiting because it felt unnatural. Sam wanted to scream.

Dean stilled eventually, for the most part; it was a hybrid of the limpness of before with occasional, jerking remnants of the seizure he had just suffered. Whatever they had shoved into his veins was making come around a little bit more though, and his glazed eyes opened slowly, searchingly. Sam knew what – _who_ – he was looking for.

_One_, he had told Dean. But he had a feeling that Dean's known that for far awhile now, and maybe discovered it sooner than he did.

"Sam," Dean mouthed, soundless because of the tube through his throat. But Sam _heard_; by god he heard and the sound echoed and bounced around inside him 'til he ached with it. It was louder than any sound Sam could have made; it choked him, and it paradoxically kept him silent even if he was the one between them who still had a voice to speak with.

Sam thought he was going to be sick, watching his brother just barely _endure_ any of this. He swayed, felt Reade struggle beneath him before he was supported on his other side by Bobby. The two men knew better than to take him aside to be looked after himself. Though. To be taken aside was to be taken _away from Dean_, and that was unacceptable. They kept him standing exactly where he wanted to be, in his brother's line of sight, looking right back at him.

From the corner of his eye, Sam watched Wei drift closer to them. The doctor seemed pensive, watching the others work and listening to the medical jargon. He was absently playing with the necklace, Sam noted with some territorial irritation, though if it was a compulsion that helped him think, Sam was okay with that.

"They can tell we're from the Finn's Canyon thing," Wei told them quietly, and he started chewing at his lower lip too, "The injuries are consistent with exposure. There's just no question."

Sam let that sink in with all it's implications; they were going to get in trouble for all this and that was apparent enough. But the feeling of the dread of capture just slid from him; the job was done and in the end all he needed was for his brother to be okay. He was surprised, by how it easy it felt to let the idea of capture go.

"Dean," Sam murmured, and it hadn't been a question. It was more of an order; _tell me his status, tell me he's going to be all right._

Wei ignored Sam for a moment, tilting his head at something he had heard from the doctors and nurses. "Stand taller," he told Sam in a clipped tone.

Sam caught the urgency, pulled strength from god-knew-where and did as he was told, holding his own weight and stepping apart from Bobby and Reade.

"This is his younger brother Sam," Wei called out to the doctors, "Let him help. Let Sam hold him."

Sam didn't know what Wei was talking about, but _Let Sam hold him_ was motivation enough, for _anything_. He can stand taller, whatever the hell Wei meant, because he'd always stand taller, holding his brother.

" " "

It was apparent that the poison had done and still was doing a lot of damage, and so the doctors have determined that treatment involved not just giving him medicine to neutralize the poison, but also hosing him down to get rid of the chemicals on his skin. It was as Wei had warned Dean when they first rescued him; they had to clean him up and remove the residual access of the poison to his body, otherwise there was no use getting the treatment if he just got exposed again.

They had to risk his life by removing some of the machines; but then again, they also assured it by putting him in his younger brother's arms.

They lent Sam scrubs that he could get wet in and that he could just throw away afterwards, and then he knelt in the middle of the industrial-grade shower. Two male nurses stripped Dean down and lowered him into Sam's sure grip.

Dean simply nestled into his brother's arms; it was a space he knew, a space he fit into. He drifted as Sam hung onto him not just by his body but by talking against his ear, asking him to fight, asking him to stay, as two nurses ran water over the both of them, and scrubbed at Dean's skin.

When they were done, Dean was asleep and taken away from him again. He watched as the doctors toggled with the machines on him, got rid of some more, added a few others. They dried him with thick white towels and wrapped him in blankets, almost smothering him in them. When they were done he actually looked worse; pale and swollen and unbearably clean, and him on the stretcher looked like crowding, overpacked groceries on a rare, lucrative supply run: machines and wires and pillows and blankets and plastic and gauze and the remnants of his brother somewhere underneath it all, like he was going to either spill out or be crushed or deformed, 'cos there wasn't much room left for him.

A nurse pulled Sam aside, told him to finish up his own shower to get rid of poison on him from his contact with Dean, and that they would check Sam and his companions out also. He started to fight her, give some stubborn excuse, except by this time his friends have decided to draw the line.

"He'll be shuffled around for tests for awhile," Wei told him, placating him by giving him Dean's necklace back. Sam reflected that this man was a_ wily, clever, brilliant _bastard.

_"I_f you don't do the shower thing properly," Wei went on, "You might still have poison on your skin, Sam. They wouldn't let you near him when he settles in his room. _I _wouldn't let you near him."

"Okay," Sam said quietly as he slipped Dean's necklace over his head. The last time he'd done this... he shook the shuddering thought away.

_Things will be different this time_, he told himself, _It's only for a little awhile, and then I'm giving it back_.

The three men did as instructed – showered thoroughly – and then slipped into scrubs and got examined one by one.

Sam suffered it quietly in muted, exhausted shock, letting his mind drift, letting his own injured body crash from the adrenalin of having to look for and then look after Dean. Thoughts and strength all but bled from him as he sat on the exam bed, spent, at the very limits of everything: at the limits of his strength, at the end of his abilities, at the periphery of the things going on around him. It was not much different from when he finally closed his eyes.

" " "

All of the hunters were hospitalized for one reason or another: mild smoke inhalation injuries and chemical poisoning exposure for Bobby and Wei, continuation of the treatment for Sam's injuries, and a considerable stint in the ICU for Dean. Reade was completely unscathed and preferred to be away from the hospital premises after things settled down, in case the EMT he had 'punched' recognized him. In the hunter-fashion he was beginning to understand, he rented out a motel room nearby.

To Bobby's vindictive triumph over Wei's comment that he should be more wary of the smoke because he was older, his injury did not progress to serious complications and he was released in two days. Wei, who was far less wary and whose lung capacity was compromised by his smoking habit, stayed longer. Both men resided in the same motel as Reade to regroup and regain their strengths after they checked out of the hospital. Sam didn't mind being confined more lengthily though, because it allowed him to be with Dean as much as he wanted.

He was there minutes into Dean settling down in the ICU; wheelchair-bound and still tethered to an IV as a compromise with his doctors, but determined to just _be _there. He watched the machines around Dean; the mechanical breaths, the too-slow beats of his heart that eventually had the doctors coming in and leaving flat, white pads on his chest that beat his heart for him and jolted his body every few seconds. He watched the poison-driven fever start to build, making his brother's skin slick and sallow. He watched the IV liquids – painkillers, treatments that neutralized the poison, things to keep him hydrated, things that sedated him, things that kept him from seizing, and so on - journey from bag to line to vanish through needle and tape and skin. It was all so terminally boring, and it was all blindingly terrifying.

He watched the fever lower and settle, watched the lines of pain mar Dean's forehead as he slowly made his way closer and closer to the surface. He was therefore ready when Dean opened his eyes, and searched for him, and searched for _answers_.

"You're okay," Sam assured him softly, laying a hand on his, "I'm okay... everyone's okay."

" " "

News came in fast and furious in the days that followed the explosion: The hunters and Paul Reade did indeed succeed in saving the 4,000 residents of Finn's Canyon. The only fatalities were the five federal agents who had stayed back with the 'alleged bomber,' whose body was yet to be found. Other things yet to be found were traces of a bomb in the first place – investigations had determined structural failure in the plant following damages from an earthquake, instead of foul-play. The plume of smoke and the general manner of how the plant exploded was also inconsistent with the destructive behavior of any bomb the experts knew about. No one could explain it.

For the first few days, the authorities left the brothers alone. The nature of Dean's injuries however, pointed to the obvious fact that he was from the Finn's Canyon incident, and it was only a matter of time before they knocked on his door.

He was conscious and alert when they came in, but still unable to speak given the tube that was inserted into the cut on his throat to help him breathe. He also looked ill, gray and weary, barely healing from the most complex developments of his injuries. His brother was with him, sitting on a wheelchair by his bed and looking not much better with all his bruises in the height of their coloring.

The cops were Finn's Canyon locals Rosetti, Jennings and Garcia, flanking their Mayor. They looked stunned by the sight of the injured brothers, until Dean lifted up a white board Sam had given him when Dean finally woke up after four days of being unconscious. He wrote down: 'Should see the other guys.'

Mayor Keys frowned, but stepped forward. "The doctors reported that they had a patient with injuries consistent with having been caught in the blast. All of our residents were safely evacuated and accounted for so I knew it would not have been one of us. Having said that... I wasn't expecting you."

Dean shrugged opened his palms up to the Mayor as if saying, 'Well here I am,' or 'What do you want from me?'

"The hospital records said your names are Sam and Dean Reade," she added.

Dean's brows rose, and he looked at Sam inquisitively. These were, of course, names they've never used before.

"I'll tell you later," Sam promised, before turning to the Mayor edgily, "So what now? Are you going to have us arrested?"

"I want to," Keys admitted, "But I'm trying to figure out for what. You confessed to a crime that categorically isn't a crime – no evidence of a bombing was found. You're claiming to be a person who died years ago - except there's proof of this 'Dean Winchester' character's death firmly established by federal records. And now, you even have documents that show you're actually someone else. What can I possibly do with all of that? No bomb, no bomber, no crime."

Dean looked pretty surprised himself, but he just shrugged.

"When you said you were going to blow up the town," Keys said, "You didn't ask for anything; all you wanted was for us to empty her of all the people." She laughed at herself nervously, "I don't know what's crazier: I guess I could think that maybe you knew this would happen and saved us. Or I could also think that you rigged a non-traceable bomb to blow up, for no reason at all. Both are... incredible."

"There is no reason to any of this that we can give you," Sam told her earnestly, "None that you will find any more believable. I'm sorry."

"Try me," she dared.

The brothers looked at each other.

"Try me," she said again, "Or I tell the feds the alleged-bomber is here."

Dean gave Sam a terse nod.

"Paul Reade saw the tragedy in a dream," Sam said, "He didn't know what to do. We all know he made his lottery money with similar visions, so he had every reason to believe that what he saw would also happen. Check your records: he sought out help from a psychologist, cops, priests, the damn bartender too, but who would believe him?"

"You did," Keys pointed out.

"It's what we do," Sam said, "We're uh..."

"Paranormal investigators?" Jennings filled in.

Dean winced, but Sam jumped on it because it was a hell of a lot easier to digest than if he said they were hunters.

"Yes, exactly," Sam agreed, "We believed him, and knew we had to empty out the town."

Keys chewed at her lip thoughtfully.

"We were gonna do it ourselves," Sam went on, "But when it became apparent that we needed help, we couldn't come forward with a prophetic vision. So we went with a credible threat instead."

Keys rubbed at her face wearily, "It's uh... I can't just..."

"We don't expect you to believe us," Sam said earnestly, "But that's as far as I can tell you, and you'll make of it what you will. Now as you can see... we can't... we can't just bust out of here. You can have us arrested if you want and there's no way we can run away. But your people are alive, and there's no proof we did anything to try to hurt them. What you do with that is just up to you."

Keys hesitated, glanced at her men. They all had families, friends, who survived the disaster. "I come from a place where we look after each other. This situation can only be explained in two ways: One, either you're incredibly good people who put their lives on the line for strangers who can't believe in what you do; or two, you're incredibly evil and can get away with it. As for myself... I've always believed in the best of people. I'd rather... I'd rather believe in the first.

"I can't thank you," she went on, "I'm not that sure. But if you get caught here... it won't be because of me."

" " "

When the Finn's Canyon people left, Dean scrawled something furiously on his white board, which Sam squinted at trying to read.

"Man, I never thought I'd say this," Sam breathed, "But I cannot wait for your voice to come back. Your handwriting sucks."

Dean tapped at the board anxiously, wordlessly telling him to shut up and read.

"I'm trying, I'm trying," Sam said, and eventually made out from the mess of words that Dean was telling him to leave his ass and skip town.

"We're not gonna do this again," Sam told him sternly, "And besides, I don't think she's gonna call the cops on us, Dean."

Dean's jaw dropped in disbelief, soundlessly indignant.

"Just trust me, all right?" Sam sighed, "Those people have been through a lot, and there's a whole lot more they still have to do in terms of rebuilding their lives. They can't believe us completely, but there's a lot of things they can't explain anyway, like Reade."

Dean scrawled something on his board again: 'Speaking of...?'

"Oh yeah," Sam said, "About that. He's still got most of his millions stashed around somewhere."

Dean looked at him with sour skepticism.

"I know where you're coming from, believe me," Sam said, "But he's the one who set up our bogus info here, and he managed to bribe someone to back that up with documentation. And get this," Sam squirmed around and drew out his wallet from his jeans. He drew out a credit card and an insurance card under the same name.

Dean's eyes widened in disbelief.

"He told me he can't do what we do," Sam said, "But that people should help the best way they can. We, brother, now officially have a sponsor."

Dean put an inquisitive finger to his chest.

"Yeah," Sam laughed, "You too. I'll give it to you soon as you bust outta here."

'Nice,' Dean mouthed, and wrote down – 'We married a rich old man.'

Sam laughed again, "I prefer to think of it as getting adopted, jerk. Anyway it's one less thing to worry about." He turned pensive and added, "What with... everything else on our plates."

Dean pursed his lips and nodded.

"So ah..." Sam hesitated, "Four thousand people."

Dean scribbled something on his board: 'Sleepy.'

"Oh no you don't," Sam told him, "You've been dodging this for days. This is what you wanted, right? So it's all square now."

Dean glared at Sam, and then showed him another note: 'Drop it.'

"I can't," Sam admitted quietly, "I just... I just want you to get better."

'I'm f-' Dean was writing, except Sam knew the rest so he cut him off by grabbing his hand.

"You're not," Sam snapped, "Give me that much."

Dean wrenched his hand away from Sam's grip in annoyance, writing: 'Was wrong. Doesn't work that way.'

Sam bit his lip as he read it.

Dean wiped at the board with the blanket, wiped it clean like he wished he could wipe himself clean, his conscience and the blood off of his hands.

"So what now?" Sam asks, "How long are you gonna punish yourself for this, Dean? What do we do? Save four thousand more people? Eight? How many do we have to save?"

Dean thought about it for a second, before writing down decisively: 'Everyone.'

Sam shook his head in dismay, "You didn't owe anybody anything to begin with, Dean," Sam said quietly, knowing it was fruitless argument.

Dean just shrugged and closed his eyes, pointedly ignoring his brother.

Sam knew he couldn't convince Dean of things not being his fault, and though it was slowly killing Dean, that sense of responsibility and righteousness was also what made him who he was, what made Sam love him all the more.

"You were in hell," Sam went on, "Everyone breaks, and that's precisely the point."

Dean just shook his head vigorously, and waved his brother away.

Sam sighed. He was tired, and he didn't have the answers. He was tired of hurting for his brother, was tired of Dean hurting for himself. "I don't know what to say to you anymore."

Dean peeled one eye open, and then the other. He wrote: 'Quittin on me? Good.'

"No," Sam said vehemently, "No. _Never_. I just... I don't know what to say to you right now."

Dean placed an emphasis on the word 'good' by underlining it three times.

" " "

Even in the week that followed, Sam could not find voice to his efforts to comfort Dean or ease the guilt and disappointment he felt in himself. Dean had once told him, 'There are no words', and he knew exactly what that meant now, and knew exactly how Dean felt. There were no words for his brother's misery, just as there were no words to ease it. There was no job, no number in the world that could convince Dean he was redeemed, and all they could do was trudge on forward, like they always did.

Sam, unable to help Dean, found his strength in a functional, simmering anger that he'd almost forgotten about since Dean came back. Lilith broke his brother and if he could kill her, he could fix Dean. Killing Lilith can solve everything.

Dean, on the other hand, found strength from... god knew where. He was dried out and exhausted, and yet he moved forward by sheer momentum and reflex, not knowing how else to be. Or maybe he moved because he sensed that Sam was moving and determined and that if he didn't follow, he'd be left in the dust or caught in that efficient, single-minded whirlwind that was Sam in his most inexplicably _hungry_ form.

Both men threw themselves into recovery and when they were finally able to check out, Dean was still winded and shaky but at least he was on his feet and out of the hospital. Armed with a bag of his prescriptions, he hopped into the passenger seat of the Impala and shut the door.

"Ready?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Dean replied with a wince. Not that he had much of a choice, really.

" " "

Reade, Bobby and Wei were going to meet them for lunch at a pizza place next to a neighborhood specialty bookstore. The usually reclusive Winchesters were unused to company outside of Bobby, but Sam insisted it was the decent thing to do, given that the two men had saved their lives, stuck around to see them after Dean was checked out, and not to mention the fact that Reade would be footing a good bunch of Winchester _operational _expenses (as opposed to [Dean's] _vices_, which Sam said they shouldn't charge him for) from now on.

"Hunter Etiquette 101?" Dean snorted. He coughed slightly; his voice was still hoarse from his injury and unavoidable damages from the tubes that helped him breathe, but Sam was happy it was back, nevertheless.

"Well we owe 'em," Sam pointed out, "And you know what that means to Winchesters."

"We owe everybody lately," Dean sighed.

"Before lunch we'll drop by the bookstore," Sam said, "Look for a new journal."

Dean's brow quirked, "Whatever happened to hitting the digital age?"

"You didn't seem too inclined..." Sam hesitated.

"When did that ever stop you?" a loaded question that Sam decided not to go too deeply into.

"Fair enough," Sam conceded, "I guess I just don't think we'll have the time for any major overhaul... yet. Maybe the scanning and stuff can be a retirement activity. You know... for after we get Lilith."

"We're retiring after that?" Dean asked, skeptical.

"I don't know," Sam admitted, "We were gonna retire after getting the yellow-eyed demon, weren't we?"

"You were," Dean said. He scratched the back of his head in thought, "I'm wondering if you'd have really retired after that, if I didn't... you know."

"Get into that damned deal," Sam finished.

"Yeah," Dean grimaced.

"When you were gone," Sam began carefully, "I changed, and I can't change back. But back then, right after the yellow-eyed demon died... maybe. But shoulda-woulda-coulda... I've stopped thinking about all of that, now. We just gotta get Lilith, and then figure it out from there. I feel like the moment we get her, the world is going to open up, Dean, you'll see."

"Dad always did say you're 'results-oriented,'" Dean commented neutrally.

The brothers stepped into the bookstore, and went straight for the journal section. Dean picked up a Hannah Montana diary with a heart-shaped lock and raised it for his brother to see.

"Sam, I found what you're looking for!"

Sam didn't dignify it with a reaction, and then focused on a few leather-bound pieces with durable sewed-on binding and thick, cream-colored pages without lines. He touched the rough paper with a calloused finger in approval.

"Dean, check this out," he called.

Dean walked toward him and picked up a copy, turning it over in his hands. He pretend-gagged over the almost forty-dollar price tag. "Jesus, Sam!"

"You gotta be willing to pay for quality," Sam sighed, "So what, is this good?"

"Well, you're the one writing in it," Dean pointed out.

"Very funny, Dean," Sam snapped, "We're both writing in it. Just like in the old one, we both have to write useful stuff in it every time. Dad's rule, remember?"

"But you said my handwriting sucks."

"And you said so did mine."

"Then why are we doing this if no one will understand anything we write?" Dean asked.

"Someone will," Sam sighed again, "Why are you being difficult?"

"'Cos I just got my voice back," Dean wiggled his eyebrows at his younger brother, "You said you missed my voice."

Sam was going to roll back his eyes, but his lips quirked in instinctive humor, and Dean caught it easily. The older Winchester grinned too.

" " "

Later that night, Sam watched his brother sleep fitfully. He'd almost forgotten that this was Dean's new 'normal;' Dean had soothed the nightmares by rendering himself practically comatose with alcohol, or beat-up after a job. But he was heavily on medicines now and could not drink, and he was recovering and apparently strong enough to have them again. Even exhausted and barely-healed, Dean's body refused the rest of complete oblivion, and he was once again thrown into agitated grumbling and turning.

Sam used to wake him up until he realized that nightmare or not, sleep was sleep, and Dean had too little of it as it was. He left Dean alone, regretfully trying to drown out the barely audible whimpering. He'd get used to it, he thought, or Dean would get used to the nightmares. One way or another, like they always did, they'd find a way to move on.

He ran his hand over the entry he'd made relating to the Finn's Canyon incident on the last few pages of their father's journal; their new one was kept in a plastic bag in the trunk, ready for use when their current one eventually ran out.

John Winchester's journal already contained a lifetime of things, and he wondered how far they'd get into the new one until they stopped hunting, or… or _died_. He also wondered how much he'd have to write about his... his own 'extracurricular' activities, the ones Dean wished he'd stop, that could be useful in the future. He'd never written anything about his demon-blood or what he'd done to strengthen himself; he noticed that neither did Dean, or their dad. He wondered what else his dad knew or did that wasn't encapsulated in the book.

Thinking about demon blood always made his heart beat a little faster; his head throb a little, as if there were a stream of fire coursing through his veins.

_It doesn't matter what I have in me_, he thought. In Finn's Canyon, they'd changed their destinies; they'd saved themselves and people who were supposed to die, they'd changed their fate, what they were made for. Destiny was not set in blood or stone. The future could be fought and changed.

Demon blood didn't mean he had to do demonic things, just as human blood didn't keep Dean from doing inhuman things in hell. He could use what he had and do the right thing. He could save everybody. He could save Dean.

**The End**

**July 24, 2009**

**Finalized**

**February 23, 2010**

* * *

**Afterword and Story Preview: **_**Ever This Day**_

* * *

**Contents:**

**I. The Story**

**II. The Characters**

**A. Dean's Mathematical Compulsion**

**B. Sam**

**C. Good Old Bobby**

**D. The Original Characters**

**III. Massive Thanks and Replies**

**IV. Next Project Preview: **_**Ever This Day**_

**I. The Story**

_Open, Shut_ has had a fairly long journey... my best-reviewed SN fic so far is an angsty adventure called _Underworld_, which I was so apprehensive about because of the complexity of the story and my profound insecurities on my capacity to tell it. But I found the challenge exciting and wanted to write another story that placed the brothers in an impossible situation (_Underworld_ pitted the brothers Winchester against the distinctly urban setting of New York City's subways). _Open, Shut_ then became a unique job where there were no monsters to hunt, just 4,000 people to evacuate from a town that a street prophet believes is about to be destroyed.

The same worries I had for _Underworld _plagued me for this fic, unfortunately, and I was stuck with a considerable amount of work done, with zero certainty if what I wanted to say was understandable. _Open, Shut _was going to languish in my laptop for months more if not forever, until I decided the best way to check was to get some beta help, for the first time ever.

The awesome Merisha assisted me in this respect. She was patient, precise, encouraging and insightful, and I am very privileged to have arrested her attention for a couple of weeks while working on this fic. All mistakes and disagreeable elements left on the final posted fic are of course, mine, especially as I added a couple of scenes she had never even seen along the course of posting. I had a good experience with my first ever beta, and have resolved that this is a really good exercise in tackling particularly plot-challenging fics for me.

Aside from my initial apprehensions and the extra time from the beta process, the 'long journey' of _Open Shut _can also be traced all the way from its first appearance as a short reference in one of my older fics. For those who've read _Steps Behind_, this fic should be familiar. Like I said... _Open, Shut_ has been in the pipeline for awhile, it just took a long time to gather any real steam :)

**II. The Characters**

As always, this is the part where I explain questionable character aspects that were raised in the story.

**A. Dean's New Mathematical Compulsion** has two parts: (1) his intellectual capacity to get the idea and do the math; and (2) his delusion that it would solve his problems.

I _really _had doubts about this one. Sam had always been looked to as the scholarly one, but Dean's intelligence is also often hinted at in the series (when he surprises Sam by his research and the things he remembers from the academe), and is well-accepted and used in the fandom. I guess I decided to play with this intelligence and make it a firmer component of the character by using it to distinguish him further from Sam. In _Open Shut_:

_"While Dean was hardly a fan of mathematics, he understood that he needed it in life and so, as he did in hunting, excelled in it also. While Sam was great with the humanities: literature and history when they were younger and eventually philosophy and the law, it was the practical and the physical that Dean had an aptitude for: the sure and quantifiable sciences like math and physics and chemistry. They both equally sucked at art. Either way... if Sam had less of a sense of self-preservation, he would have been calling his older brother geek-boy instead of letting it happen the other way around."_

Either way, this is me justifying that it's possible, haha. The other component is the delusion. Remember in _Monster Movie _Dean made mention of how a second chance to go on a mission from god was a blessing? And how in _Death Takes a Holiday_ Tessa asks him not to delude himself about these things? His feeling that he can make up for his sins in _Open, Shut_ hopefully captures that same anxiety and rationalization.

On a season 5 note, I was particularly giddy when _Sam, Interrupted_ tackled the question of how many people Dean had to save and he said, "_All of them_." That was the conclusion he comes to at the end of _Open, Shut_ – which was already pretty much complete by the time that episode aired – and so I edited my fic further to recycle some of the lines from that episode just to emphasize how Dean's characterization in _Open, Shut_ is more-or-less in-line with the series.

**B. Sam **as depicted here might also be questionable; why would he let these delusions run wild like that? Why not be smart about it and nip it at the bud? The answer is in the passage:

"..._Dean's current mathematical fixation. Sam had decided to call it quantifiable retribution, this decision of Dean to pursue a numerical approach to salvation and penance. It was... mildly deluded, to be generous. But maybe there was something in Sam that hoped it was true too; maybe if they solved this problem, Dean would be fixed..._"

Remember, this fic is set after _Family Remains_ and Dean's revelations about hell and the things he did and how he enjoyed them. Sam is clueless as to how to handle his brother and is willing to latch on any way to 'fix' him.

At the end of _Open, Shut_, it should also be noted that after this exercise of saving four thousand people, Sam realizes that there is nothing he could say anymore to convince Dean that he couldn't have helped what he did in hell. I felt that there had to be a tipping point for Sam; I mean, when did his concern for Dean change into helpless weariness over hearing about his problems? I wanted to capture a point where Sam simply got resigned to that fact that he could not convince Dean or pull him out of his guilt. Note that in the series, the next time Dean's stint in hell is mentioned in a monumental manner after his_ Family Remains_ admissionis during _Sex and Violence_. I guess _Open, Shut_ is my version of that tipping point for Sam.

Also a notable character point at the end of _Open, Shut_ is that Sam channels that helplessness and weariness back into determined anger against Lilith. As surely as Dean was deluded at the start that he could fix himself by saving people, Sam was convinced that everything could be fixed if he could kill Lilith. I think this is similar to his fixation on getting the yellow-eyed demon during season 1.

**C. Good Old Bobby** is a fun addition to any fic, as always. What I did do that might be odd in _Open, Shut_ is that he loses it when he thinks Dean is dead and that he failed the brothers. But I didn't feel this was too much of a stretch considering he buried himself under a bottle after Dean died, and one of the major issues about hunting in this fic that is articulated by Wei applies to Bobby too:

"_Hunters help people. That's what we do. But sometimes, we're victims too... Everyday we put our lives on the line for people we don't know, some of them worth the sacrifice, many... not so much. On the other hand, my life for another hunter's... it doesn't get anymore worth it than that_."

Hunters are heroic, but they're human too. I think this is why it fascinates the fandom to delve into how the boys would fare in 'normal' conflicts like illness, poverty, school and the like.

**D. The Original Characters** are always risky. Sure, the series and the books have them left and right. They are so prevalent that I watch movies and TV shows and keep seeing people who must have appeared at _Supernatural _at one time or another, haha. But I'm always scared that the OCs I come up with may cross the line... you know, that magical line we fans put up that's like, a forcefield that repels most OCs and female cast members, haha... seriously though, it's hard, setting up a fic that begins with and prominently involves OCs. Personally, my rule of thumb to keep them from being intrusive is if they make the characterizations of the main characters better. For instance, you might have noticed that Dean magnetized to Wei and Sam magnetized to Reade. I enjoyed writing their conversations with each other because they revealed more about the Winchesters than anything else. I hope my rule of thumb is palpable and palatable.

**III. Massive Thanks and Replies**

Thanks to all who read, alerted, favorited and especially all who reviewed _Open, Shut. _The reviews of these wonderful people were encouraging and insightful and the time you took to think about the story and tell me what you thought and analyzed it is vastly, vastly appreciated. Love to you guys:

adder574, apieceofcake, borgmama1of5, deangirl1, Janissa11, judy jai, Kritty, Laura, Lisa Paris, Mistress Sorcha, Ophium, .paper.93, Poppy, rockpaperscissor, silencesoloud, sweetpea84, Von, YankeeFan87, and zuimar.

Anne1013: I did a good deal of research on the medical aspect – if watching_ House, M.D. _and wikipedia counts as credible haha :) I appreciate the 'fake research beautifully' comment completely, because I seldom go into the medical jargon that I appreciate in h/c fics because I cannot for the life of me figure all that out, haha, so thank you very much for appreciating the effort re: the research. I also appreciate that you share my views re: the different types of smarts the boys have :)

Mandy: Thank you so much for the encouraging, faithful readership – if you're not careful, you might end up getting stuck with _me_, haha, instead of the other way around :) Seriously though, always appreciated :)

masondixon: Thank you for letting me know you appreciate my efforts with the original characters; they are always a gamble, and I'm always a little bit scared putting them in and it's nice to know that I managed to make them unobtrusive and even contributory to the fic :)

Maz101: You caught the tracheotomy before anyone else, haha :) And I also appreciate your commentary on how clever Dean really is :)

poppi: Unfortunately, a follow-up story to this one is not on the pipeline :) To go into a sequel carrying profound medical consequences would take a lot more knowledge than I have :) But it's an interesting idea, and thank you for not only reading my fic, but commenting and suggesting :)

**IV. Next Project Preview: **_**Ever This Day**_

Author: Mirrordance

Title: **Ever This Day**

Summary:"We have been through much together, you and I," Castiel had said. This is Dean through the eyes of his overburdened, self-appointed guardian angel.

" " "

**Chapter 2: Be At My Side**

_Before, During and After _The End_: It's 2014, and Castiel is not quite sure what he wants back more - his old self, or the old Dean_.

" " "

He missed being well and truly _high_.

Chemical substitutes worked marginally well, but they were hardly adequate. They were crutches where once he had wings, taking him deep into memories and distortions of them when once there had been truth and unparalleled beauty.

"Now I'm surrounded by shit," he declared absently, as he laid on his back and stared at the ratty old ceiling of his cabin. He'd just woken up, and these were the first words out his mouth. It could have been any other day, in this sense.

"And a good morning to you too."

Castiel grinned a little, closing his eyes and shaking his head in mixed amusement and dismay. Dean sat against the ledge of the window, a couple feet from the bed. His left hand rested lightly against his hip, the fingers drumming in his ever-movement.

"I didn't know you were sensitive," Castiel said, pushing up to his elbows. He winced in the pain the movement caused, and halted midway between lying down and sitting up. He leaned heavily and awkwardly against the headboard of his bed, "What brings our fearless leader to my neck of the woods?"

Dean had watched the entire exercise with a quirked brow, made no move to offer assistance. "I heard you got hurt."

"Worried about me?" Castiel smirked.

"I wanted to make sure you weren't malingering," Dean growled, "You've been 'hurt' and sat out missions before."

"As you can see," Castiel said grandly, hoping it masked the sting he felt at the rebuke, "I am neither high nor hungover this time. Are you happy?"

"No."

"Well why would you be," Castiel sighed, "You haven't been happy in years. Hey – hand me that, wouldja?" He nodded at an orange plastic container of pills an arm's reach away from Dean, perched pertly on top of a rickety table. It blinked at Castiel, offering relief.

Dean offered him another eloquent brow-quirk - "You kiddin'? Do I look like an enabler to you?"

"No, I'm fucking not," Castiel said, "I broke my foot, Dean. I _need_ the damn things this time 'cos I fucking hurt."

A moment of contemplation crossed Dean's green gaze. There was something in him, something that was thinking of giving in, before he shut it out. He picked up the bottle, and then walked across the room and placed it on the very top of a bookshelf.

"You are so perverse," Castiel said wearily, after his mouth opened and shut in a mad, scrambling search for words that matched his level of incredulity.

"I need you dried out and sober," Dean said as he walked to the door, "I need you thinking clearly."

"You don't need anybody, Dean," Castiel sighed, calling after him as the door clicked shut. He didn't mean it, wasn't sure why he said it.

" " "

Dean didn't visit him again, but maybe the bastard did worry even just a little bit, or felt guilty over acting like a douchebag because in the next few hours, a stack of back issues of _Busty Asian Beauties_ were delivered to Castiel's cabin for his amusement, and then days later, crutches that matched his height in the most unimaginably perfect way.

Said crutches were made of fresh wood, the same trees found surrounding the camp. They were irregular and natural-looking, but smooth and solid and finely cut and varnished. The handle grips were made of weathered leather, and Castiel thought the material looked familiar; that it had once belonged on Dean Winchester's back, when the jacket had been useful before getting ravaged and rendered unusable by the unkind years.

He ventured out of his cabin for the first time since getting injured. The air felt fresh and open, and he felt a little bit revived. The camp was in the middle of its usual bustle, people running back and forth, buffering up defenses, figuring out where to get the next meal as much as the next box of tampons. Someone in one of the cabins was of all things giving birth, her determined cries piercing the clear blue skies – it was not the first birth in the camp nor would it be the last – and life went on somehow, stubbornly.

He greeted friends he had passed, a lot of them comely women who cooed about his injured foot but who had not really visited him when he was stuck in bed. His taste in women tended toward the fatalistic hedonists, after all, and what fun was the stark realities offered up by a gloomy, drugged invalid? He did not mind; his purpose was clear, after all, and he clutched at the back issues of the magazines tightly as he made his way to Dean's cabin.

He knocked on the door smartly; Dean was more discreet in his affairs in the camp, but one never knew which lady could be rolling around naked in there. Knocking was one of the first human things he got used to, after being around Dean so much. There was some shuffling and muttering, but finally the door unlocked and Dean appeared by the crack of the open door, looking like he just came from bed.

"Whadja want?"

"Giving these back," Castiel said, raising up the magazines, "I didn't think they were mine for the keeping."

"You got that right," Dean said, almost-smiling. He opened the door wider and let the ex-angel in, and Castiel shut the door behind him and hobbled along to follow. Dean's cabin looked spartan, just a little-bit-lived in, as if the person who once owned this place had recently died.

Castiel put the magazines on the table where maps were laid out with Dean's work. His powerful scrawl was on miscellaneous pieces of paper, on the indents of books and maps. His trusty ballpoint pen looked haggard and overused and precious, bitemarks of thought on one end.

"Those are a bitch to come by now," Dean said of the magazines, "Wonder how many of those chicks have been turned, or if there's any of 'em still alive."

"Either way," said Castiel, "_Salut!_ to them for the endless hours of fun and amusement." Castiel sat down on one of the random seats in the cabin, watched Dean as he washed some dishes on the sink. One cup and a clean plate done with a flourish, and they looked clean and lonely.

"You didn't join everyone else for breakfast outside?" Castiel asked.

"I was busy," Dean said as he dried his hands, "And it's so fucking cold." Castiel noted the two button-down shirts he had over his tee, and the slight shudder.

"It's nice out," Castiel corrected with a frown, "You coming down with something?"

Dean flashed him a wicked grin, "Does it matter? We got a shitload to do and you know, with one man down--"

"Yeah, yeah," Castiel snorted, "Because I like having broken feet for enjoyment."

Dean coughed into his sleeve; it sounded rough, doubled him over a little bit.

"Maybe you should sit this next mission out," Castiel suggested, uncertain.

"Been thinkin about that," Dean admitted, eyes taking on a dark hue and a distant gaze, "Mick and Dana and that kid we found last week are pretty bad off though, so... what else do you do."

"Shit," Castiel muttered, "We're out of meds again?"

"They're going through the damn things like a bunch of addicts," Dean said, adding mock-gravely, "No offense."

"None taken," Castiel said mildly, "They're really bad off?"

"Yeah," Dean winced, "They've been waiting awhile too...those damn pills are getting harder and harder to find."

"You sure they can't wait a little bit more?" Castiel asked, looking down at his broken foot.

"For you?" Dean asked back, reading the regretful gaze very clearly, "You're gonna be laid up for awhile, man. Otherwise, you know who I'd have bothered first." Dean licked his lips thoughtfully, and his fingers drummed against his thigh again in anxious consideration.

"What?" Castiel prodded him.

"Nothing."

Castiel's brows rose in surprise. Dean looked like he did that first year Castiel had known him, and he never thought he'd see that again. He looked uncertain, unseated.

"Dean," Castiel said, more firmly and sternly that his mode lately, because if Dean can be his old self, Castiel could damn well try too, "What?"

"Like I said," Dean replied, and his eyes had shuttered again, "The damn pills are getting harder and harder to find. They're gonna run out eventually, and we're gonna watch 'em die one day - Mick and Dana and that kid and a whole lot of the sick people we keep trying to save by getting medicine. They're gonna die one day, and we're just gonna have to watch. Can't help thinking... maybe we're just postponing the inevitable here."

Castiel felt like he just got punched in the gut, "You're not saying--"

"We keep sending the strong, healthy people out to get their medicine," Dean went on, "A lot of the time we end up getting hurt or killed. The missions are getting more and more dangerous, and there's less and less of the able-bodied men to do the job and for what? A lost fucking cause."

"And what?" Castiel snapped, "We just let them die?"

"It's going to—"

"Say it," Castiel commanded, sounding alien in reclaimed angel-form again for the first time in years even to his own ear, "Say it, and tell me what it tastes like."

"Either they die," Dean growled, "Or we all--"

"Say it!"

Dean's jaws tightened. He looked Castiel in the eye, and for a moment the angel thought he may have won. But then his eyes hardened again, and gone was the hesitant, genuinely-bothered Dean that Castiel had thought may have returned.

"We will let them die," Dean said, with finality, "It just does not make any sense to keep doing this."

Castiel felt ill, disgusted and the worst feeling of all for some reason of all these vile things was the disappointment. He had no words for it, nothing to justly encase the level of offense that he felt. And so he masked it, like he's long ago learned how.

"Sense- when has that ever been our strong suit?" Castiel countered, as flippantly as he could manage. He started hobbling for the door. It would have been a semi-graceful exit, the two of them going back to the old dance that was their norm of late; name-calling and snideness in a weird mashed-up camaraderie and dependence. No one else at camp truly knew either of them in better times except for the other, and they both loathed each other and loved each other equally for that knowledge. They shared a secret, or maybe it was harsher than that. Mutual blackmailing, more akin to a nice little gun-toting stand-off. Dean had known Castiel when he was stronger, as an angel. Castiel knew Dean when he was – _arguably_, of course because Castiel most certainly felt differently – weaker, when he was Sam's older brother.

" " "

The camp, under Dean's leadership, was going to let the sickly die but apparently, _not today_. Not today because the next time Castiel sees Dean, he's seated on the passenger side of one of their few running jeeps, having just returned from the mission.

The people who greeted them were in a celebratory mood – patting him on the back as they unloaded the medical supplies and other goods the team had procured. Dean nodded at them dismissively, which was not atypical. But he made no move to rise from where he sat, and Castiel noted that while the other men helped to unload the supplies, one of Dean's grunts had closed rank on him, not leaving his side. He hobbled toward Dean faster, and the closer he got, the more apparent it became that something was wrong. He was pale, and shadows underlined his dull eyes. His shoulders shook twice in suppressed coughing.

"Dean--"

"Later," Dean barked at him, and only when the crowds started to disperse following the supplies did he push up to his feet, gripping at the jeep tightly. He swayed, and growled and slammed a fist against the vehicle in frustration at himself.

"What happened?" Castiel asked the man beside Dean, one of his more reliable grunts, a towering man named Yager.

"He's kinda sick," the man replied, and gigantic and imposing as he was, his hands hovered at Dean's elbow uncertainly, knowing that any unwarranted assistance and he was going to get his ass handed to him, "Collapsed after we finished the job. Scared the shit outta me."

Dean glared as he was told on, and then looked worriedly up at the groups of people still mulling around. He did not want to be seen like this.

"You gonna keep yappin or are you gonna get me outta here?" he rasped at them.

" " "

They settled Dean in bed, and Castiel found himself lingering, even after Dean thanked Yager gruffly. For a moment there, Yager had mistaken it for some sort of invitation to stay, causing Dean to bark at him to get the hell out to work and just leave him alone. He was surly when feeling badly, Castiel has known this for years.

"You too, cripple," he muttered as Castiel, before turning his back on the ex-angel, fully-clothed with his shoes on.

Castiel just sighed, set his crutches aside and sat by Dean's knees. He started working on unlacing the other man's boots. Dean kicked his legs to dislodge Castiel's grip.

"Dude, get off me!" Dean bellowed.

"Shut up and have a modicum of dignity about this," Castiel told him simply, unlacing the boots and tugging them free, before tossing them to the floor, "Now was that so hard?"

Dean just groaned, pressed his palms against his eyes. He shifted restlessly, breathing hard and moaning low. "I don't know where the fuck to put my fucking head."

"I have some standard stuff," Castiel said, drawing out a couple of pill bottles from his pockets. He looked through them and selected a Tylenol.

"Walking pharmacy," Dean said wryly, before opening up his palm and accepting the offering. He dry-swallowed the two white pills, closed his eyes for a moment before looking at Castiel meaningfully, "You really should get a handle on that."

"I thought you'd ah..." Castiel hesitated, "You've quit trying to make me a better man a couple years ago."

"Yeah?" Dean asked, sounding surprised.

Castiel snorted a little, "I was the angel and you were doing all the converting. At the start it was saving towns instead of destroying them for the greater good. And then it was to decide my own fate, exercise my free will. And then it was to wine, women and song. And then a little bit less of the wine and the women, and certainly nothing of... of the drugs. You stopped, a couple years back. I didn't know if I should be relieved or insulted that you've finally written me off."

"I haven't quit," Dean argued, though he did not sound all that convinced himself.

"You should get some rest," Castiel said, getting up from the bed and arranging his crutches again, "I'll go catch up to Yager, lend him my shoulder to cry on."

"I wasn't that mean," Dean said indignantly.

"_Rest_, Dean," Castiel said emphatically, "I'll check on you later."

"I'm fine," Dean called out, "You don't have to."

**To (maybe, eventually) be continued...**

Thanks for reading and 'til the next post!


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